


HSH, His Serene Highness

by Glowbulle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Harry Needs a Hug, Harry swears a lot, Hogwarts Is a Principality, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Prostitution, Soul Bond, kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:54:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 53,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28790547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glowbulle/pseuds/Glowbulle
Summary: For several centuries, the Snape family has reigned over Hogwarts, a prosperous principality. For the prince, everything will be turned upside down during his rise to the throne and a thousand-year-old secret will be unearthed, jeopardising the regent's beliefs, his choices and his decisions.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Comments: 5
Kudos: 53





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello beautiful readers,
> 
> First things first : Disclaimer  
> I do not own the Harry Potter Universe nor its characters. They belong to J. K. Rowling, all rights belong to her. This work is a translation of the fanfiction "SAS, Son Altesse Sérénissime" written and posted by Nanola Meylhann on fanfiction.net. I only own the translation.
> 
> On this joyful note, I hope you enjoy this piece of work.

Tobias Angus Snape paced in the vast consulting room that served as his office, the heels of his boots clapping on the smooth marble, his hands crossed behind his back. Locks of his raven black hair had escaped his ponytail and freely teased the prominent appendage that served as his nose.

His unpleasant air at this moment discouraged his counsellors to open their mouths to emit one single sound that could make the walls of the palace quake and the Prince’s anger was legendary in the principality of Hogwarts.

“My only son… How could something such as this have happened?!” he belched.

“Your Highness,” started an old man with a white long beard and half-moon glasses that hid his sparkling blue eyes.

“Severus… God, why?” he implored looking up at the vaults of the ceiling of the reception rooms that were painted with cherubs from Heavens with their chubby faces and little wings.

It was a will of this ancestors, devout Catholics, to paint the ceilings of the reception rooms with representations of biblical scenes. His descendants had not seen any use in their removal.

Tobias didn’t practice. He didn’t believe either but held on attending services because Catholicism was the State religion and because everybody went to church on Sundays as well as on holidays. It was a secular practice in Hogwarts and nobody thought of doing things otherwise.

“His Highness has no other choice than to submit, your Highness,” the old man politely replied.

Snape ceased his pacing to gauge his counsellor who didn’t flinch, only slightly bowing his head.

“Why, on God’s name, am I being punished like this?” raged the Prince. “I thought I had paid my debt to the All-Mighty when Eileen died! But no, it has to be decided otherwise! All of this because of this woman, this blasted woman!”

He clenched his fist, as if he wanted to tighten it around the neck of the one responsible of all his ailments.

“Sybil Trelawney…”

“Do not speak her name!” ordered the Prince coldly. “I refuse to hear that woman’s name! Everybody will forget what has been said and my son will never be aware of this!”

The counsellors bowed and left the office, taking great care to close the richly decorated heavy door. The Prince sank in his armchair and took his head in his hands. Forgetting was easier said that done.

Taking it upon himself that, in spite of everything, the hated words of Sybil Trelawney were not lost, Tobias took his finest quill, a parchment and wrote.

The paper was sealed in an envelope with the princely seal and placed in the chest of the cabinet, hidden behind a heavy tapestry.

0o0

The weather was gloomy, just like the crown Prince of Hogwarts. His heart cried as the rain was falling on the black umbrellas and the closed coffin in which rested the body of his deceased father.

Severus Tobias Snape felt the small hand of his fiancée upon his arm. She supported him in his grief.

He was dating Pansy Parkinson, a woman of high lineage whose family was very close to the Prince’s entourage. He had courted her as soon as she had been old enough for him and intended to marry her within a few months. For now, she was sharing his bed it suited them.

The people was hoping for a wedding soon and maybe an heir to the Crown. Severus did not wish to fail in his obligations to provide a descendant.

According to the tabloids, Pansy Parkinson would be a perfect princess. She had everything to second her future husband in his reign and perfectly knew where her place would be. She was often compared to the one who would have been her mother-in-law had she been still alive: Eileen Snape, née Prince. A woman of great beauty, promised a great future, died in the prime of life when her son was only four years old.

Her death had been a tragedy and every year, this day was synonymous of national grief for the Principality. Her husband Her husband had not married a second time, not finding anyone who closely or remotely resembled his late wife.

Severus saw in Pansy the woman his mother would have wished for him to marry. He appreciated the countess and affirmed that she would be an exemplary spouse.

For now, it was a matter of funeral, not wedding. The Prince Severus gritted his teeth to hold back his tears. He was feeling like reliving his mother’s funeral. It was almost twenty-five years ago, the memory, however, was still vivid in his mind.

That day too, it had been raining. The little boy he was had been forced to wear a black suit and to put on a tie that had strangled him. His father had always stayed with him, remaining in constant contact with him, as if for fear of seeing him go away in his turn.

Today, Severus was wearing a dark suit, a tie that still strangled him and the rain did seem to want to stop.

The bishop of Hogwarts officiated, protected by an umbrella and everybody was religiously listening to the burial ceremony of the deceased.

The native Hogwarts people had gathered in the graveyard, united with their monarch in this grief. Silence was barely troubled by heavy raindrops that were falling upon the umbrellas above their heads. The cameras of the whole world hadn’t been able to enter this place of meditation. Nothing will be filmed despite the importance of the event. On the other hand, they will be present for Severus’ coronation who would officially succeed his father.

He already was the Prince of Hogwarts for a few weeks, the coronation however had not happened yet and the throne could not stay unoccupied.

Severus knew his job. He had been prepared for that all his childhood, following his father during his official trips, being present during ceremonies. Older, he had assisted Tobias. On the other hand, being the Prince and not the heir anymore was nerve wracking. Like a sword of Damocles above his head.

The coffin was taken down in the Snape vault. His Serene Highness, Prince Tobias would be buried near his wife, Princess Eileen and not far from his ancestors. Many Snapes were resting here. The entire dynasty since their arrival at Hogwarts.

As the crowd gradually left the scene, Severus stayed before the vaults, small stone building erected for the princes and princesses of Hogwarts. He refused to enter, finding the atmosphere gloomy. His father went once a month. He himself had never wanted to follow him, only waiting at the door. During twenty-five years, not once had he crossed the threshold.

“Severus,” breathed the tender voice of his companion, “are we going or do you want to stay a little longer?”

The bodyguards were here, just behind Severus and Pansy. However, they knew how to be discreet despite their stature.

The prince of Hogwarts tapped on the hand of his future wife slipped under his arm and turned his back to the vault. In the graveyard, everybody had left. Pansy and him slowly walked up the stony path. Hurrying would not help. They weren’t expected anywhere. Severus did not have any siblings. His father had been an only child, like him and his mother. Thus, he did not nave cousins. His grandparents were all four deceased. His family was reduced to his only self.

A black car with tinted glass was waiting for them at the exit of the graveyard. A man got out and opened the door to the Prince while the chauffeur did the same to the countess. The bodyguards took place in the two other cars that were also waiting. The small procession left the place to go, small flags with the coat of arms of Hogwarts in the wind, to the , to the princely palace which was a few kilometres away.

The Principality of Hogwarts was was not very large. Twenty kilometres square and around twenty-two thousand inhabitants. The city was settled in a small enclave between the English and Scottish borders. It was a city State, often compared to the principality of Monaco, an enclave situated in France because they had the political status. Hogwarts was less popular, however.

Among those twenty-two thousand inhabitants, only three thousand were native Hogwarts people, the others were From England, Scotland, Ireland… the Snapes were authentic Hogwarts people, born and dead in Hogwarts. Severus had only left his town to study in London during his young years. He had liked the capital but came back as soon as he got his diploma.

“Severus, is everything alright?” Pansy asked in her soft voice.

“Yes.”

He was not a talkative man, far from it. The use of words was not his forte. People said of him that he was cold, harsh and haughty. Speeches were He loathed speeches. He found useless this verbal display, preferring going straight to the point without turns of phrase to say, in the end, the same thing. Needless to say that his cabinet directors were tearing their hair out giving a speech that resembled him without being too abrupt.

Despite all paternal love he had received, Severus had never had a real conversation with his father. He had been used to talk, debate with his professors, he handle the language with ease. However, nobody had taught him to modulate the words to convey a feeling, a thought putting the shapes.

“Do you want me to ask the housekeeper to get tea prepared when we arrive?”

“No.”

He didn’t want anything. Nothing else than a few hours alone or in the company of Pansy, who was the only person who knew when to stay quiet. The others, his servants, never stopped bothering him for nothing. Sometimes, Severus wished he wasn’t a prince and take care of himself alone, like when he was just a student living in his small apartment in London. He suddenly missed this time.

“Alright.”

His girlfriend smiled. Pansy was beautiful. Very, with her light eyes and her dark hair attached in a most sophisticated bun. The little veil on her face gave it a maturity that she did not seem to have on a daily basis.

Pansy was a calm young woman but she did not look like she was twenty-seven. As if she wasn’t able to get any older, no matter what she wore. Tailor made on measure, designer evening dress or plain jeans, she seemed younger than she was. It might have been due to her cheeks or the fact that she could have a very childish behaviour, almost immature some times.

But it didn’t matter to Severus. He knew that he wasn’t in a relationship with a spoiled little girl. Despite her education and the money the Parkinsons had, Pansy had not always had what she wanted. She had always confined herself to living in the shadow of her older sister Lavender. Besides, the latter had long been approached by her parents to be the future wife of the Prince. They had placed great hope in Lavender. They had made sure that the woman crossed path with Severus at every of their meetings. However, it had been Pansy that had attracted his attention.

It had been three or four years that they were fooling around and one year since they officially got together.

“Darling?” called his sweetheart, pulling him out of his thoughts.

It wasn’t until then that Severus realised that the car doors were open and behind the tinted windows stood Hogwarts Palace, under a curtain of rain. They had arrived.

The monarch extracted himself from the comfortable seat and was welcomed by a cold wind that froze him on the spot. An umbrella protected him from the downpour as soon as he left the vehicle. He was thus protected from the drops of water until he arrived in the great hall, Pansy following him.

Nobody was there to welcome them, apart from a load of servants who helped them to take of their coat. No Tobias. Severus gritted his teeth at the thought of his father was really dead.

Until today, he had avoided to think about it, plunging headlong into his work. But he couldn’t put this aside. His father was dead. They had just buried him.

Taking it upon himself, Severus addressed his girlfriend with a nod as let her go about her business. He assumed she would go back home.

The couple didn’t live together. Not officially. Pansy had her quarters in the palace. However, to avoid gossips, she spent more at her parents’ house than with her lover.

The prince closed himself in his father’s office – _his_ office – and sat in the comfortable leather armchair, his head resting against the head support, his gaze on the portrait of Tobias Snape made a few years ago. Severus would have his once he was crowned monarch of Hogwarts.

Life was simply unfair.

0o0

The good days came back and with them the preparation of the coronation of Prince Severus that was due a few days later at Saint Anne church, the place where all Hogwarts monarchs had been crowned.

Snape was calm. He had grieved his father and had work over his head. Anguish and stress were two emotions that he didn’t know. For him, the coronation was just an official ceremony. He knew the ceremonial by heart and could recite each and every word, to the coma. Everything had been timed, programmed, rehearsed, as they would a play. It was, after all, a play. He played a role, the main role.

Only, this calm did not reach his servants, his counsellors or his companion who became, each day, angrier than the day before. It was exhausting. He only managed to find serenity in the silence of his cabinet.

One week to the ceremony and after eternal One week to the ceremony and after eternal fittings – there always was something wrong about his outfit – Severus had thought he would be left alone to devote time to his work, but it was without counting on a servant knocking on the door.

“Yes!” he thundered, quite surprised.

He wasn’t expecting anything or anyone. No meeting had been planned. It wasn’t either lunchtime. Tu sum up, he shouldn’t have been bothered.

The door revealed on of his bodyguards who had a finger riveted on the headset screwed in his ear.

“Your Highness, a woman wishes to converse with you.”

Another intruder who had no appointment and who wanted to have an interview with the prince by force. If he feared these people, knowing it was a woman didn't bode well. However, he forced himself to keep a princely demeanour instead of getting annoyed and calling for the impudent to leave.

“Who is it?”

“A certain Sybil Trelawney, Your Highness.”

This name wasn’t unknown. Severus said nothing, his brain working on high speed. His father had talked to him about this woman, this Sybil Trelawney and had advised him to be very careful if by any chance, she presented herself to him.

Never, up to this day, had the woman come to him. Severus had believed for a long time that it was only a father’s invention, a being out of whoever knew where to devour children. A fairytale. Over the years, he had almost forgotten her existence, before she came back to him with the force of a cannonball.

“Bring her to the small drawing room.”

The other closed the door. Severus left his cabinet in turn and settle into the small drawing room adjoining his office. It was there that he received his guests. It was a It was a wide room furnished with a sofa, several armchairs, all vintage and restored. The walls were lined with light wallpaper. The heavy attached curtains were in the same tone, decorated with small flowers – chosen by Princess Eileen. A large mirror was attached in front of the marble fireplace, giving the impression that the room was twice larger. A small table was in a corner. It was there that Her Highness, Princess Eileen wrote her mail.

In the old days, this drawing room was his mother’s office which his father used as a reception room. Thus, Eileen was here for state affairs.

Sybil Trelawney was introduced in the room Severus was. By habit, Severus stood to greet the visitor. It was a woman who must have been in her early fifties but Severus would not have bet on it. She was strange. Light long hair, almost white, red eyes and milky skin.

An albino.

“Your Highness,” she said, bowing awkwardly.

“Missus, please sit down,” declared Severus as he took as seat in one of the comfortable armchairs.

“I prefer to stand. I won’t be long, Your Highness.”

“What is the reason for your presence to me?”

In response, Trelawney pulled out of her gigantic bag a newspaper whose front page read _“Princely Wedding: Countess Pansy Parkinson to Become Princess”_. Severus did not see what the announcement of his marriage had to do with the presence of the fifty-something woman in the palace and more exactly in the small drawing room.

“Yes?”

“I warned your father about twenty years ago. You were just a child. He refused to listen to me, feeling that I was only delusional!”

Severus saw out of the corner of his eye his bodyguards approach them in order to get this madwoman out. In other circumstances, he would have let them do. Nevertheless, he was intrigued. With a wave of his hand, he stopped their walk.

“My father? What did you tell him?”

“Didn’t he confess anything to you? Why am I surprised? If he didn’t believe me, he wouldn’t have told you anything I told him.”

She leaned over him, dipping her ruby pupils into the prince’s onyxes. The odd and disturbing colour made Severus shiver slightly as he squeezed the armrests of his armchair.

“Marry that woman and your country will run to ruin and desolation. Marry that woman and everything your family has built will be in vain! In a year, Hogwarts will no longer exist.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your country will sink into chaos!”

“Chaos? We went through wars, invasions–”

“It’s nothing like that, you fool! You have no idea of the forces in place!”

“The forces?”

Tobias might have been right not to listen this woman’s rantings. She was completely mad.

“Don’t you know anything about Hogwarts History?”

“I think I do, on the contrary.”

“No, you don’t know anything. You’re just an ignorant! Hogwarts has not been built by your ancestors. It was a holy place before it became what it is now. A place where powers–”

“It is enough!” Snape thundered. “I don’t know what world you live in but here we are in reality. And in this reality, nothing can prevent me from marrying the countess! Bring her outside!” he ordered his bodyguards.

They went to apprehend Trelawney but she lifted her hand and they seemed to freeze.

“I will only say this one, Severus Snape,” said the woman – and her voice seemed to intensify as well as her aura – “Pansy Parkinson is not for you. This is not your destiny!”

She returned to normal, but nobody moved inside the room. Severus was nailed to his armchair, unable to move one toe.

“Your destiny has been traced in the stars for millennia, Severus Snape. Do not act like your father, do not decide to turn your back from your destiny!”

“I don’t believe in–”

“I don’t care what you believe in or not! I’m only here to pass on what I know! You’re free to do what you think is necessary. But I always tell the truth. There is only one person destined to you and it’s not Pansy Parkinson. Keep clouding the issue like your father did and in twelve months, your country will no longer exist. You will be nothing, except a rotting corpse. Keep going on this path and at he next full moon, you will see Hogwarts starting to disappear!”

Two days later, Severus swallowed nervously as he realised that all the plants in the park were gone, replaced with wasteland. It was the same for the city whose decorations were no longer. It corresponded to the full moon. And the worst part was that nothing could grow.

One month later, the access roads to Hogwarts had been cut. According the experts, an earthquake had been the cause. Nevertheless, nothing had been felt and within two hundred metres, there had been no damage. In order to come and go, people had to use detoured paths.

Thirty days later, the palace had started to show signs of crumbling. Cracks had appeared there overnight.

“Go fetch Trelawney!” Severus ordered one of his bodyguards when he realised the changes that were not to please him.

“Severus, dear, you should sit.”

“No! Not until this woman is in front of me! How did she know all that? How could she–”

Words failed him so much the rage that inhabited him was intense. Pansy resumed reading her book, waiting like her companion in the small living room. She was aware of the matter and did not understand what could be going on either.

She was also very worried of the consequences. The fact that she was not the one destined to Severus was not reassuring, far from it. If he denied her, she wouldn’t accept without doing anything! Neither would her parents.

Being a princess did not interest her. It was not for that that she had entered into a relationship with her lover, it was because she loved him. The rest, the title, the crown, was just a plus that would lead to a number of changes in Pansy’s life. Good or bad, the future would tell him.

“I am of the opinion that she will explain herself.”

There was only to hope.

One hour later, Sybil Trelawney went through the door of the small drawing room. At their last interview, she wore a long dress over thick tights, ankle boots, and an ugly coarse-knit cardigan. It made you wonder if she hadn’t dressed in a thrift store. Today she wore denim pants that were way too big for her, the same waistcoat over a floral blouse. Her very light hair was hanging down her back. A very tangled hair mass.

“Your Serene Highness,” she said by sketching a semblance of bowing. “My lady.”

“Missus,” Pansy replied politely.

“Mrs. Trelawney,” coldly replied Snape.

“If I’m here, I suppose I hit the mark. I’m amazed to be there so early. I thought you would take longer to get me back.”

“I want everything you know,” Severus demanded.

“With pleasure Your Highness,” Trelawney retorted with a small smile. “Hogwarts was built almost a thousand years ago by four beings who combine water, earth, fire and air. The four elements. Have you heard of Rowena Ravenclaw, Godric Gryffindor, Salazar Slytherin and Helga Hufflepuff?”

Severus nodded. He had heard of these names. They were just legendary beings. They had lived in the days of Merlin himself.

“At that time, Hogwarts was just a castle. The ruins remain on the hill to the north. These four people were not magicians or even witches. They had mastery of the elements. They tried to teach this art to children without any success. At the end of their life, they wanted to leave a trace of their existence and created a being that would be like them, an elementary since that is how these people are named.”

The Prince felt that this story was turning rubbish and that he had better put an end to this masquerade. He only held back because this woman’s predictions had turned out to be correct and he refused to see his country disappear.

“And so?”

“He died,” Trelawney announced flatly. “For almost a thousand years. He did not have the time to live very long.”

“Why?” curious, Pansy wanted to know.

“Because he was killed. By people who were afraid of him. He was too different from them to be fully accepted. Certainly out of fear. Humans don’t like what is different from them. You just have to watch the witch hunt which was practiced because some women had some kind of gifts.”

“What does that have anything to do with my country?” said Severus.

“I’m coming Your Highness. After his death, and that of the elementals, the castle was left in ruins. Nobody dared to set foot there, legend has it that the place is cursed. People had left the place. Nothing remained but the nature which had taken back its rights. Four hundred years later, your ancestor Alberic Snape entered the lands of Hogwarts to make it his stronghold without realizing that some magic was still at work. Elemental magic. Today, a thousand years later, it needs to be strengthened. If it is not, it will be the instigator of the destruction of the Principality.

A long silence followed this admission. Severus felt like he was listening to a children’s fairy tale, a story to sleep on. Still, he couldn’t deny. Something seemed to slowly destroy the town. If what this woman was saying was true, then they had to do something.

“Let’s admit it is all true,” he said. “What– How can we reinforce that magic?”

He thought he was stupid to ask such a question. Magic was non-existent in reality. He could not deny that some strange forces could reach people and endow them with a gift. To speak of magic, and place with powers, however, it left him more than perplexed. He didn't believe it in the least.

“The being the elementals created is dead. Not his soul.”

“Come on, Severus quipped, standing up. I think that is enough. I have heard enough. These stories to sleep upright–”

“You’re free to believe that I’m lying or that I’m inventing, Your Highness. I’ve nothing to prove my point. Nothing, except what is happening here. The plants are no longer growing. The palace crumbles. The weather is cooler. The closer you get to the founders’ anniversary as the months go by, the most likely Hogwarts will return to what it once was. A land where nothing grows. Because that’s what it was before the founders decided to settle here.

“This being,” Pansy intervened, “you’re saying that humans are afraid of him. Why?”

She attracted a glare from her fiancé but did not care. This story intrigued her. She was not a woman who believed in magic. Things that were out of the ordinary left her dubious. Yet, there, she could not claim that everything that was happening was explainable. Besides, experts had broken their teeth there.

Trelawney gave a small smile and sighed. It would be pointless to tell them the truth right away. She knew neither of them believed her. It was therefore better to remain silent on this subject.

“For now, he is just a human who ignores who he is,” she eluded.

“Perfect! Better and better!”

“Severus,” Pansy scolded him, brows furrowed. “Is he alive?”

His companion seemed contaminated by the rantings of this poor woman who would do well to go see an excellent psychiatrist. And he didn't have a say. He had to listen to the neurotic delusions of this madwoman.

“Of course.”

“His soul?” resumed Pansy. “How can a soul be dissociated from its body?”

“By extracting it.”

Another silence. Pansy blinked once, then twice, then three before biting her lip, not knowing how to tell their visitor.

“Mrs Trelawney,” declared the young countess who preferred frankness to any other form, “it is not–”

“Possible? Without the shadow of a doubt. For poor, narrow little minds like yours. You both think that I’m just a crazy woman. That is what your father thought, Your Highness, when I revealed your destiny.”

“My destiny?” the Prince asked, suddenly exhausted.

He couldn’t stand knowing that his life was set in stone, inscribed somewhere and that he was following the thread that traced his existence without being able to get away from it. That every word or gesture is predefined.

“Someone else must be on the throne with you. And this person is the only one who can give back the elemental magic that surrounds Hogwarts. This person carries within him the soul of the being of the four founders.”

“Who?”

“He is a young man of twenty-one. He lives in London. When I heard about him, he was barely born. I tried to warn your father, but he didn't listen to me.”

“He?” Severus whispered in a white voice, all colour having deserted his face.

It was the only thing he had remembered. The fact that Pansy’s replacement was a man! He had believed it would be a woman. He had never thought of a man! The very idea repelled him.

“Yes,” Sybil asserted, far from suspecting the torment she was inflicting on the prince.

The countess clenched her fists. She hoped the whole thing was nothing more than a web of lies. How could her fiancé be meant for a man? She could have accepted that it was a woman. But a man...

“His name is Harry Potter.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello beautiful readers,
> 
> First things first : DisclaimeR  
> I do not own the Harry Potter Universe nor its characters. They belong to J. K. Rowling, all rights belong to her. This work is a translation of the fanfiction "SAS, Son Altesse Sérénissime" written and posted by Nanola Meylhann on fanfiction.net. I only own the translation.
> 
> On this joyful note, I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Two bodies merged in the large luxurious bedroom of the vast apartment on the twentieth floor of a London tower.

“My love, my love,” tirelessly repeated one of them while moving between his lover’s strong thighs.

The latter was lying on his back, his messy brown hair resting on the pillow, forming a dark aureole on the white pillowcase. He arched his slender body while his companion continued his comings and goings inside him. His fingers had planted themselves in the muscular back, as had his heels in the thighs. He moaned, eyes closed, his white teeth abusing his lips.

“Do you like it?” the other breathed without stopping his thrusts.

“It’s perfect dear,” replied the young man with a smile as he caressed the light locks that fell before the blue eyes.

Said dear nested his face in the graceful neck.

“Jack,” he murmured, “you’re driving me mad!”

He groaned and his body tensed suddenly before sagging on his lover, caught in the throes of the orgasm.

“Why?” he said after long minutes of silence barely disturbed by their jerky breaths.

“Why what dear?” Jack asked, stroking the blond hair that rested on his collarbone.

The man straightened, tore himself away from the gentle caress and sat down on the edge of the bed. He got up to remove the used condom which he threw in the basket in the bathroom.

“I wish I had you for myself,” he said as he came back.

He leaned on the upright of the separation between the two rooms, his muscular body completely naked. His clear gaze drifted to his lover still stretched out between the crumpled sheets of the vast bed.

“It doesn’t bother you at all, does it? I must not be the first to ask you this.”

Jack sat on the bed and stared at the man, clearly disillusioned. No, it was not the first time.

“How much? Ten? Fifteen?”

“Not that much, dear. Not that much.”

Five or six, however Jack stayed silent. He got up and stared to dress, ignoring the hungry look of his companion upon his person.

“Jack, stay.”

“What d’you want me to tell you, Brad?”

“Stop what you’re doing and stay with me. I could make you happy.”

The young man burst into laughter. A laughter without the slightest joy. A dry laughter. As if this simple affirmation was just pure lie. He finished putting his pants on and put his sweater next to his skin.

“I don’t like to be maintained, Brad, and you know that us, it can never happen. You’re married! And I prefer not to break couples.

He gave his lover a wink. After all, that was exactly what he was doing. Brad Chaume was cheating on his wife with him, a man. If this were to become known, their relationship would be over.

“I can divorce.”

Jack groaned and rolled his eyes before lacing his shoes. Always the same story.

“You won’t do it. Y’know why? Because I’m a whore and your wife has money. I think everything’s said. Bye!”

He sped towards the lift door without his lover having time to stop him. He closed his eyes, suddenly exhausted. His phone said it was only midnight. Still enough time for a pass or two tonight before heading home and going to bed. Hopefully he figured he could make close to a thousand pounds.

Out of conscience, Jack took out of his pocket an envelope containing a wad of twenty bills. Two hundred pounds for two hours of sex and a hundred extra for a blowjob. It was his rates. Except Chaume had added two hundred pounds more, because he found Jack to his liking. A way to pay him to keep him by his side.

Coming out of the lift, Jack Daniel’s passed the porter who didn't give him a look. It was no wonder, the young man was very far from being one of those rich landowners. He didn't have the look and the guard had seen him walk in with Brad. It was not the first time, but perhaps the last as far as he was concerned.

He didn't like people who clung to him, made him a thousand promises they would never keep. Jack wasn't stupid. Her clients didn't want to reach for her heart, just keep it as a trophy to themselves.

He had made this mistake once. Just once. And had vowed not to be fooled anymore.

It dated back to his early days as a prostitute. He was fourteen when a man wanted to make him his protégé. Peter Pettigrew, a wealthy investor. The latter had made him spark a lot of things and he, a lost teenager, had wanted to believe it. He had found himself reclusive in a room, unable to go out, unable to live like couples. One was fourteen and the other twice his age. Which made their relationship forbidden. And then he had ended up running back out into the street, refusing to be a simple thing, because that was what he was in Pettigrew’s eyes. A thing.

“Divorce,” Jack sneered once outside. “Bullshit.”

He walked up the posh street of upscale London without worrying about whether he belonged or not. Because the answer was clear, Jack had nothing to do here. He was not one of those rich people. He was nobody except a prostitute who walked the sidewalk for a living.

Seven years that he was like this, selling his body for money.

Jack had started at fourteen. After running away from his uncle and aunt, he had been hanging out in the street, rummaging in the trash cans for something to eat. And then there was the first offer, which he refused. When a man in his fifties asked him for two hundred pounds to spend some quality time with him, he couldn’t say no, because that price meant having a bed and a meal and because Jack was tired of struggling every day to survive.

Then he had continued. Not for fun.

He had stopped studying in Secondary school. No more means to pay school fees and he was reportedly sent back to his uncle and aunt. Something he refused. After all, they had done everything to get him out. As far as he knew, they had never been worried. They must have said it was a runaway.

Seven years. Seven long years of hell that Jack couldn’t see the end of. He hadn’t chosen this life but had no other. So, like much of his acquaintances, he made do with what he had, just surviving that day and hoping he could see the next day.

“Hi handsome,” someone hailed him.

Immediately a fictitious smile spread over his face and his body took a seductive pose. He was no longer even aware of these changes in his person. It was part of him now.

Whoever called him was in a car. A pretty metallic sedan. She stopped at the edge of the road and Jack walked over to the window.

“Are you ready to have a good time?” the driver asked him.

There were times when Jack wondered what could make people stop and ask him such questions. Did he have his job engraved on his face? Was it marked on his back that he was selling himself? Yet his clothes were like that of a young adult. Jeans, sneakers, hooded sweatshirt despite the reigning breeze.

“Depends,” smirked the little brunette with a lustful glance.

His job had made him encounter the worst of human dregs. He knew how to recognize good clients from bad ones. But despite the danger, he didn't spit on some money. He needed it.

He had had the misfortune of sometimes running into bullies who liked to hit or be violent with their fleeting lovers.

“On what?” said the other with a small smile.

“How much d’you have on you?”

“Hey, you don’t want to do it for free?”

“In your dreams,” spat Jack walking away.

It was another thing Jack hated. Feel the longing looks on him and have the nerve to hope for a free pass. Because they felt the prices were too high.

“Come on, be nice,” continued the other.

“You think I’m stupid?! Go away!”

“Fag!” came the answer.

Daniel’s chuckled as the car rushed past him. He refrained from giving the driver a middle finger. The latter did not lack the nerve to have dared to ask him favours for free. Even more, for insulting him when he clearly wanted to have sex with a person of his gender.

“Motherfucker,” he mumbled.

His feet walked slowly, leading him to Picadilly Circus, not far from Soho, the Mecca of English prostitution. It was there that there might still be a client or two. There were always tourists around and a good way to make some quick cash. Maybe he could even suck money out of some absent-minded. Sometimes he doubled his salary.

“Hi cutie,” a voice whispered in his ear as an arm came around his slightly too thin waist.

He was about to turn around with his usual flirtatious smile when he realized it wasn’t a potential client. It was Death himself if he stayed there. Two guys as wide as they were tall surrounded him, preventing him from running away.

He who had hoped to be able to earn a little more and return home without worries, was sorely mistaken. If he got away with just a few bruises, it would be a miracle.

“Let’s walk, shall we?”

Reluctantly, he agreed to follow the man. Fear knotted his entrails. How he would have liked to stay with Chaume, at least for the night. Because he wasn’t sure he would see the dawn break.

A shiny black car pulled up in front of the individual and one of his bodyguards opened the door. Jack was the first to slip into the backseat, followed by his “host” and the second human mirrored cabinet. The vehicle entered the noisy traffic while inside the cabin reigned a heavy silence. At past midnight, central London was still bustling. By this time, Jack would have liked to be in the little room he rented, in his bed and not here.

“My dearest Jack, you know why I'm here, don't you?”

“More or less,” Daniel’s tried boldly.

“I’m listening.”

“You want your money?” risked the boy.

He knew he couldn’t be wrong. He owed money to this man, Walden McNair, a rotten guy of the worst kind. A being who controlled the very lucrative and totally illegal drug market, Jack’s little vice. The latter had fallen into it and it helped him not to think about what he was doing with his life. However, each dose came at a price and the young man was not a great payer. Today he had a pretty impressive debt. Nearly ten thousand pounds, with interest.

Of course, this debt had come back to the ears of the chief who had taken the liberty of traveling himself to obtain the settlement.

It was the first time Jack met him. But he had often heard of him, from his colleagues. If anyone saw him, he had very little chance of escaping.

“Precisely. Nine thousand one hundred and fifty-three pounds. Ten thousand, since I like round numbers. That’s what you owe me.”

McNair gave him a smile that Jack found sadistic.

“I don’t have the money.”

“I don't care about your pathetic excuses, I want my money!” McNair spat, leaning over him. “So you're going to do your best to find this money in the next twenty-four hours or else I risk I’m becoming mean! I don't care how you do it, but tomorrow night, at the same time, if I don’t have that amount, there’s a good chance you won’t be able to earn your living any more than by doing the round.”

The car suddenly stopped and Jack was thrown onto the sidewalk without the slightest delicacy, thrown like garbage. He rolled over before stopping and straightening up, sore and above all very worried.

He didn't know how he was going to find this sum in such a short time. It was impossible mission.

0o0

In his seedy studio under the London rooftops, Jack was recounting his booty with a shaking hand.

He was not in need, one of his clients had agreed to share his drugs in exchange for a little time for free. However, the fact that he had not collected the sum with only three hours remaining made him anxious.

Before his eyes and despite his accounts, he had collected only six thousand pounds. Or four thousand pounds missing. His body was crying out at rest, his stomach starved and his mind needed some sleep. That night, he had given himself, accepting anything and everything, including group sex, sadomasochistic sex, bondages, making sure to increase his prices. But obviously not enough.

For a bit, Jack would have burst into tears. His life was a series of failures and he was solely responsible for them.

He had always felt that happiness was not for him. The only time in his life he had been happy was with his parents. But he no longer remembered. They had died when their child was only fifteen months old. Jack Daniel’s, aka Harry Potter, had met up with his uncle and aunt, his mother’s sister, in Little Whinging, Surrey. He had never been tolerated under the roof of Vernon and Petunia Dursley. Bullied, put aside, he had been considered responsible for all the evils of the earth. His childhood was spent between school and the cupboard under the stairs. He had learned early on to earn his living, doing household chores and looking after the garden.

His cousin Dudley had imitated his parents, having fun torturing the child with joy. So Harry had served as a punching bag, a pain breath for thirteen long years. His cousin’s friends had taken it into their heads to do the same.

At school Harry hadn’t had any friends. Because Dudley and his gang had decided to isolate him. It was easier to attack him. The teachers had never intervened. They hardly saw him.

Until he was fourteen, when his uncle had the brilliant idea of starting to correct him. Harry had run away. With a few books in his pocket, his precious possessions, the teenager had gone to London in the hope of a better life.

He had descended to hell the moment he realized that everyone didn't care about a lost kid. He had started playing around and then sold his body.

“You must be ashamed, right?” he whispered to the mold-stained ceiling.

Talking to his parents was something he rarely did, he was so ashamed of what had become of him. Lily and James Potter had to turn around in their grave. They had had the good life, until they died in a stupid car accident. They had died young. Barely twenty-one. The age of their son today.

“I’m ashamed of myself,” Harry sighed, lowering his eyes to the used sheets of his bed – a simple mattress put on the floor. “But I can’t do anything to change that. I tried to find a job. Except they only hire people with a diploma. Me, I have nothing. I don’t have experience. Sometimes I’d like to stop everything and throw myself in the Thames. Like that, for once, I’d be happy. At least I could be up there, with you.”

With a snort, Harry took one last look at what served as his home. A dingy little studio that he was paying an exorbitant price. He had this place from an acquaintance. The owner was not keen on the wildlife that lived here. For the young man, it was better than the street. He had been living there for a year. In previous years, he had spent more time under bridges or in squats than in a real house. There he had everything he needed: a roof, walls, no cockroaches or other vermin, enough to heat himself, running water and an electric hotplate to cook pasta.

The rest, he preferred not to see the carpet peeled off in places, the white wall was no longer that immaculate. There were yellowish spots of moisture, mold. The window was blocked and it was often cold in winter.

He had a roof, that was the most important. A roof and a bed.

Harry got up from his bed and took a quick look around. He didn't have much except clothes worn to the tune, shoes in terrible shape, and a photo folded under his pillow that showed him with his parents when he was just a baby.

Small, he thought he was cute. As an adult, he was ugly. At least that was what the mirror image sent him back. That of a young man of twenty-one, not very tall, with messy jet-black hair, green eyes too large for his thin face, a little too effeminate for his taste. Full pink lips, pale skin. The only thing he liked about him were his ears.

If we could have given him time to describe himself, he would have said he was a scarecrow. An ugly thing that was scary.

After all, it was the plain truth, people avoided him like he was the carrier of some serious illness. And then there were the others, those who did not hesitate to call on his services, calling him by many nicknames.

Harry didn't really see himself as a human, more as a repulsive thing that could be of use.

His phone beeped to signify that he only had two hours left to shower, change his clothes, and drive to Picadilly Circus to hand over his loot to McNair.

He had thought several times that he could have run away and stayed in hiding until his debt was forgotten. However, McNair was a man with eyes everywhere. He could find the fugitive and make him pay bitterly for this attempt to escape. And that Harry did not want to test.

The young man put his winnings in an envelope and left it on the bed before locking himself in his shower.

Naked, he turned the hot water knob and clenched his teeth when it was cold water that hit his head for a few long seconds only to be replaced with something warmer and more bearable.

The pipes were spitting and the flow was low but it was still that. Harry wouldn't go and complain that the plumbing wasn't working properly.

He quickly washed and wiped himself off with a rough towel before pulling on jeans – the newest in his wardrobe – a sweater, sneakers and hoodie. He thought about taking the envelope and left his apartment, not without having slipped the photo of his parents into the back pocket of his pants.

The door was closed slowly and Harry crept down the dark hallway before descending the seven floors of the small building. Everyone had to sleep around midnight. Except him.

The cool wind of that night rushed everywhere, freezing the young prostitute there. He stuck his hands in his pockets and started towards Picadilly Circus which was a good half hour walk from his house. He could have taken the bus or the tube but had neither the inclination nor the means.

When he arrived at the foot of the big fountain, no one was waiting for him. McNair was not there yet. Neither he nor his bodyguards. Which greatly relieved Harry.

The latter felt the pocket of his sweatshirt. The money was still there with his hand on it. He settled down on the steps and the cold of the stone managed to penetrate the thickness of his jeans. Harry curled up into a small ball to warm himself up.

His emerald gaze fell on the passers-by who were in the axis. He could see some of his colleagues being approached by customers in cars. Some went up, others contented themselves with making big, sometimes vulgar signs. No doubt their potential clients did not have enough money and they had tried to get favours for free.

“I find that repulsive,” growled a young girl bundled up in a thick coat, fur-lined hood pulled up over her head. “These people... they're selling themselves for money. It is...”

Harry bit back a scathing rant. Most people did not understand why prostitutes were doing the oldest profession in the world instead of finding a stable job that would allow them to be better viewed by society.

“Degrading?” Potter risked, a bit acerbic. “Maybe they don’t have the choice!”

“What shocks me are those who pay them.”

Harry looked up at her, a sarcastic smile plastered his lips. At least this discussion had the merit of making him forget the cold.

“They’re not going to fuck uglies for free.”

“No, it’s just that– the way some of them are treated… It’s this that shocks me.”

“It's human nature,” Harry replied, turning his attention back to the traffic, looking for McNair's black car. “I no longer know who said that man is capable of both the best and the worst but that it is in the worst that he is the best[1]. That sums up a lot, I think.”

He had heard this phrase somewhere and it had marked him, finding that it was perfectly representative of humanity. The notion of money did not help.

“Not wrong,” the girl replied. “What do you do for a living?”

And then, Harry understood. I was t was no more no less than a flirtation plan. However, the girl would soon be disillusioned.

“Me? I’m a whore.”

He stood up and walked away, mocking the stranger’s reaction. She wasn’t important and Harry knew full well that she could never have agreed to date him anyway. It was often enough for people to look closely at him to walk away cautiously with a hideous, contrite smile.

With his hands in his pockets, Harry was pacing back and forth, so as not to remain inactive and to warm up a bit on this cool late summer night.

And then he saw them. The trio that made him swallow. McNair and his two bodyguards. They seemed to be sweeping the crowd and the chef gave an unhealthy smile when he saw him. With measured steps, they walked towards him. Harry refrained from running at full speed. In any case, he had a presentiment that one of the two gorillas would not hesitate to use a weapon to stop him, even if it means shooting in the crowd and injuring one or two people in the process.

If Potter ever managed to get away, he knew McNair would find him. He had managed to get his hands on it in the midst of a human tide. So getting the address of his building shouldn't be that difficult. Especially for a godfather of the underworld.

Once they were face to face, Harry allowed himself to detail his interlocutor who would be his executioner. He was a man of about fifty, with long, dark hair that fell over his shoulders in sparse and sparse strands. His skull was bald. He had signs of age with wrinkles in his eyes, around his lips and his face was limp. As if he had lost weight too quickly and his skin couldn't keep up. His piggy little eyes glowed with an unhealthy glow.

Harry couldn't help but shiver and it had nothing to do with the cold that enveloped him.

“I’m surprised to find you on time. I would have thought that you would have done like everyone else, that you would have fled.”

“I thought you’d find me. Whatever I did.”

“At last a boy with a brain.”

Harry was pushed into the waiting car, like the day before, then urged to get in the back.

“Well. My due,” McNair demanded in a sweet voice far from reassuring.

With a shaking hand, Harry pulled the envelope from his pocket, which the bodyguard almost tore from him to give to his boss.

“Let’s see.”

The man showed the bills and Harry felt his heart beat faster. He was nauseous and was almost on the verge of fainting. He had had the faint hope that McNair wouldn’t count. However, he had suspected that the head of the English mafia would verify that the sum was there.

For long, agonizing minutes, McNair tidied up his booty, crossed his long legs dressed in pleated pants that fit his perfectly, and eyed the young prostitute.

“Jack, Jack, Jack,” he said, gently shaking the envelope between his fingers. “Who did you think you were chomping? Me? There is not the sum. And we are very far from it.

“I couldn’t make more,” Harry defended himself miserably.

“I don't care about your excuses. I said I wanted my dough. And there, I am far from having what I ask. Four thousand pounds are missing. Do you know what that means?”

“I can have them for you tomorrow,” assured the young man, whose heart was now threatening to come out of his chest.

He was afraid and was capable of anything to make it out alive. There, he had little chance. The bad look of the bodyguard told him that he was going to spend a very bad time in his company.

“Oh but I know. Except I gave you twenty-four hours, not forty-eight. And I can’t be more lenient that I already have.”

“Please,” Harry murmured.

“I have no mercy on those who take money from me and do not reimburse me. Stop the car,” he ordered the driver.

The vehicle came to a stop somewhere. The door opened and Harry was pushed out and pulled into a dark dead end. The occupants in turn left, McNair the last. He was in a bad mood. With a nod from their boss, the two bodyguards grabbed Harry by the arms and held him. He couldn't move an inch, his arms caught in a vice.

They were in a deserted alley. Only the trash cans full to the brim were present but none could testify. No one would bother them here and given the noise from the nearby street, no one would be able to hear them. Besides, people were smart enough not to come and interfere in this stuff. They had a certain survival instinct and preferred not to hear anything so as not to be taken to task.

“I don't like people paying my head and you, you clearly paid mine.”

The first blow surprised Harry in the stomach. He doubled over, his breath cut in shock and pain. The second hit his jaw. The third was a knock on her private parts.

Completely stunned, Harry didn't realize he had been released to the floor. On the other hand, he clearly felt a certain change. It was no longer the fists but the feet that struck her body with force on the ground.

The pain engulfed him completely and only moans managed to escape his shattered lips. He ached everywhere but his mind did not seem determined to let go and to sink him into unconsciousness yet saving.

And then it all stopped. He was forced to his feet and a hand forced him to lift his head to look at McNair.

“I’m gonna give you another chance. One week to find me ten thousand pounds. Otherwise, I'll go and serve myself directly on you.”

They let him fall to the ground, his legs no longer carrying him. He lay still on the ground, wheezing and his body in pain. Knowing what he was in was the least of his worries. The most important thing was that the slightest movement hurt him and that if he stayed here death would take him down pretty quickly.

“Dad,” Harry whispered, breaking the silence in the alley. “Mom.”

Tears rolled down his cheeks.

“I'm so sorry.”

He closed his eyes as in the distance he heard a siren howl.

0o0

The double doors of Saint Bartholomew's hospital swung open on a stretcher surrounded by two rescuers.

“Male, in his twenties, several bruises, concussion and fractured ribs.”

Doctors rushed on the unfortunate man to take care of it while the rescuer continued to deliver what he knew about the victim. Not much if it wasn't for his state of health. The patient had split lips, bruises on his face and the rest of his body hidden by the bloodstained and torn clothing in places.

0o0

An incessant and particularly unpleasant noise roused Harry from his sleep. He would have liked to reach out to turn off the alarm but it was as if a weight had been attached, preventing him from moving. As a result, he was forced to listen to this unbearable sound.

It took a while for his foggy brain to wake up completely and when he did, it was to remember what had happened the day before in that alley. McNair, the beatings, his threat!

Harry straightened up suddenly then suppressed a moan of pain. He sank back onto the mattress and it was then that he realized that this was not his room, that the noise was not his alarm clock – besides he did not have any, it was his neighbour’s he heard through the thin walls of his studio walls – but that of a drill raging in the hallway.

Before the young man had time to ask himself the slightest question as to why he was here, the door to his room opened to a pretty nurse whose face lit up when she saw him awake.

“Ah, how are you ?”

“How did I end here?” he stammered.

“In ambulance.”

“How long have I been here?”

“The day before yesterday,” the woman replied looking at his file hanging from the end of his bed. “Do you remember anything?”

She gave him a few exams that he didn’t understand the meaning of, asked him questions which he answered evasively – he even lied about his first and last name, giving the identity everyone here knew. The only thing that really interested him was the fact that he had been there for over twenty-four hours, almost forty-eight, and the threat of McNair hovered over his head.

“I have to go,” he stuttered, pushing the nurse away.

This gesture allowed him to realize with horror of his condition. He had too many threads strapped to his arm, threads he tried to remove before the nurse rushed to stop him from doing anything else and the pain radiating through his body. remembers him.

“Let me go!” Harry screamed, more out of suffering than anything else.

At least, that’s what he thought he was doing, but it didn’t seem to work. The nurse – Donna – called for help who arrived to help nail the patient to the bed. Harry was then laid down and reconnected.

“You can’t leave yet Mr. Daniel’s. You nearly died. You can hardly stand on your feet.”

“You don’t understand, I–”

His mouth refused to continue, to say he was in danger if he stayed here. Instead, a torpor suddenly seized him and he fell back on his pillow.

His second awakening was less painful and more natural. No sound of a drill, just that of the nurses talking in the hallway. The pain was there but more diffuse, softer.

Slowly Harry moved each of his limbs to see where he was in the most pain. The conclusion was clear and final: the ribs. His beating must have broken him one or two. Lucky he didn’t have anything else. At least he could go back to work to pay McNair back.

The young man pushed his sheets aside and tried to get up. His body, besides begging him to lie down, seemed made of lead. It was difficult and exhausting to move. However, Harry did not disarm.

Again, the door to his bedroom opened on, not one, but two nurses. Did they have a knack for disembarking each time they tried to escape?

“You cant stand Mr. Daniel’s. Your body is way too weak.”

“I’ve to go.”

But the nursing staff forced him to go back to bed. He would have liked to resist except that his body was too weak.

“For now, you will stay in bed.”

“I’m off age, you’ve no right to keep me against my will.”

Nobody listened to him. We just gave him medicine and changed his infusion.

He told himself he would always have the opportunity to leave soon enough. It remained to know where his clothes were and to flee.

“I’m in what hospital?”

“St Bartholomew.”

Once again, he was entitled to routine examinations and was finally able, after a few minutes, to be alone in his room.

It was a room that must have been bigger than his small studio. Bigger but also cleaner, clearer, airy. The place was comfortable. There were three doors, one to the hallway and the other two to what was to be a bathroom and the third to the toilet. Or a closet. Except this one, as Harry found out, was by the window.

A doctor came to his room a little later to speak to him. To his head, it was clear that he would have given anything not to be there.

“How are you feeling?” the man asked, looking at the file.

“Heavy, and I’m hurting everywhere.”

“It is an effect of analgesics. No tremors? Nausea, abdominal pain? Any headaches?”

“No. I’m fine.”

The doctor then looked up at him, briefly, to dive back into his reading.

“You had a concussion. You spent a few hours in a coma. When you were found, your health did not suggest a happy ending, Mr Daniel's. As for the rest, you have three broken ribs, two cracked. Good thing there is nothing more given what happened to you. The toxicological results came back positive for cocaine, crystal and methamphetamine. If you are well, it is because of the analgesics and anxiolytics that you are given. Without it, you would be suffering from lack. So we’ll keep you for a few days. This is not the type of hospital to let out patients who are at risk of sequelae. Your case is not to be taken lightly.”

“How long?”

“A week.”

Suffice to say that when he left, Harry was a dead man. He leaned back against the pillow and closed his eyes, overcome by sudden fatigue. The effects of drugs. Potter didn’t try to struggle, it wouldn’t help.

So he fell asleep.

0o0

The week passed quickly between moments of consciousness punctuated by pain lessened by medication and long drowsiness.

One word had written in luminous letters in his mind: detox. One thing was certain, it was not easy. However, it could have been worse if he hadn’t had all those painkillers that kept him from having a clear mind.

During the whole week he had had the feeling of swimming in the fog.

He had been taken several blood tests, it was said. Harry suspected them of checking whether or not he was HIV positive. With his profession, it was very likely. After all, if he protected himself during sex, he gave blowjobs, and the risk of getting HIV was relatively high.

Potter had never done a blood test until then. Because he dreaded the results. It was probably completely stupid of him. However, his clients never asked him if he was in excellent health or not. They didn’t care. All they cared about was having someone who could show them stars for a hundred pounds.

To his relief, Harry learned that his results were negative. He had no illness. It was almost a miracle though. At least for the nursing staff.

Despite the fog shrouding his mind, Harry was afraid. The deadline given by McNair was fast approaching and the young man had nothing. Not the slightest pound sterling. Simply because he had been beaten up a little too much by the boss of the English Mafia and his henchmen. However, even that excuse would not pass. Which left him no chance of survival. McNair was going to use his body to pay off his debts.

The sick man hadn’t needed a lot of imagination to figure out what that meant. Either McNair would have fun taking organs for the black market – a kidney or a lung could be worth a fortune. Or, he would take skin or a member. There was still a solution for him to decide to keep Harry at his disposal for a limited time, until he had paid off his debt.

Strangely, this last solution was preferable to the others as long as it came close to his activity. At least he would know what to do and that wouldn't change his clients too much. However, McNair could be violent, in which case Harry was likely to regret not having chosen to have a kidney or a lung removed.

And then, after ten days, Harry was allowed to leave the hospital. He left without paying, unable to afford the astronomical sum of two thousand pounds sterling. He who already owed ten thousand, he was still in debt and told himself that he would never have enough in a lifetime to repay everything if he continued at this rate.

Dressed in his bloodstained clothes, he had to return on foot, through London while it was raining heavily.

“Poor boy, it’s really not your week,” he whispered to himself.

After a few days spent basking in his vision of luxury, he found himself propelled into his reality. Creepy, dark and hardly cheerful.

It took him over an hour to arrive in front of his apartment building, shivering, wet and shaking. Harry pushed the open door open and entered. His water-soaked sneakers squeaked on the dirty linoleum and left puddles in his path.

When it was time to go home, Harry froze. The door to his studio was ajar, he who had made sure to close it. Tense, he stood in the doorway listening to see if anyone was still inside. And then, once certain that no one was expecting him, he entered the premises, his heart pounding, a strong urge to embrace his neck.

His home was not like what he had left when he left. Everything had been turned upside down. His bed was torn, her clothes had been thrown to the ground, some were in tatters...

McNair had come here. He knew where Harry lived and would be back soon to collect his due. Potter couldn't stay here anymore. It was no longer certain.

His concern escalated and Harry rushed inside to take the few things still in order, slip them into a backpack, gather his meagre possessions which he stuffed in his luggage and get his hands on the books. sterling that he had hidden in a hole in the wall. Once ready, he left what had been his haven of peace for a year.

From now on, he would find what he had forgotten during this year: the street.

The first night was trying, because despite the blanket he had been given and the dry clothes he had quickly put on, he felt cold.

The second, he was invited to go to a reception centre for the Homeless. He had a bed for the winter, a shower, and at least one meal a day.

The third time, he had spent her on the sidewalks to entice customers, cruelly aware that it would not take long to violently take back what he had been given.

It was always like that for Harry. First of all, this wonderful year with his parents, and this tragic accident which cost them their lives. Then having a home and a family had been undermined by the Dursleys’ hatred for him. The months of hardship in the street, followed by the meeting with Peter, the few weeks of happiness, then the dark years, to grab a little money here and there, famine, cold, fear. The brutal meeting with McNair and his little restful stay in the hospital, only to find himself on the streets once again, at the bottom of the hole.

Everything we gave him was taken away from him. So Harry wondered what was going to fall on him fabulous to be taken away soon enough.

[1] Quote from Grégoire Lacroix (known as Corbin): “ _L'homme est capable du meilleur comme du pire, mais c'est vraiment dans le pire qu'il est le meilleur_ ”.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello beautiful readers,
> 
> First things first : Disclaimer  
> I do not own the Harry Potter Universe nor its characters. They belong to J. K. Rowling, all rights belong to her. This work is a translation of the fanfiction "SAS, Son Altesse Sérénissime" written and posted by Nanola Meylhann on fanfiction.net. I only own the translation.
> 
> On this joyful note, I hope you enjoy this chapter.

His Serene Highness Prince Severus Snape tightly pinched his nose bridge as a headache slowly crept in.

“Pansy, darling, please.”

“No Severus,” Pansy gasped in a trembling voice.

The young woman took a deep breath, eyes wet from tears and red from crying, to calm herself down. Thus far, she had kept her rank and showed as much dignity as she could despite de stunning news. But now, it was all too much.

“I accepted the fact that someone told you that I wasn’t destined for you.”

“Pansy–”

“Let me finish!” shouted Pansy whose nerves were falling.

Lucky they were just the two of them in the small cream drawing room. The bodyguards and Severus’ private secretary had gently been told to get out by the Prince. This was a private conversation.

“I am tired Severus. I love you but – this situation can no longer continue. I accepted the fact that this madwoman decrees that our wedding could cause the ruin of Hogwarts. She provided evidence that nobody can contest, not even I. I could have accepted your marriage to another woman. For the good of the country, I would have gone away with dignity. Except it’s not a woman and this, it’s above my strength. There is no question for me to stay at Hogwarts when the man who will replace me will not be long. I do not wish to be the laughingstock of our city and singled out. I prefer to take some distance.”

She clenched her fists and took another deep breath to keep the tears away. She had not stopped crying since the day of the announcement of the identity of her replacement.

A man. Harry Potter.

It was heresy to put two men in power. None of them could bear children and they shouldn’t count on Pansy to play surrogate mistresses. They would need to adopt. It wouldn’t be conventional, but not unseen either.

Pansy could have propose, same as Severus, that they continue their relationship, like two lovers that lived an extra marital relationship. Except Pansy was not this kind of woman. She refused adultery and knew the Prince refused it as well.

“Have you taken your decision?” asked Severus slowly, darting his onyxes in the blue lakes.

“We do not have a choice, Sev. You are the Prince, and you must marry this Harry Potter. For Hogwarts. If he is really what Trelawny pretends him to be then…”

The rest of what she wanted to say was not easy. Pansy forced herself to continue, doing herself violence as not to burst into tears.

“Then my place is not beside you. Break up our engagement and marry him. I prefer it to happen before the ceremony, you can imagine.”

At least, she wouldn’t be the trampled wife just after their wedding and Severus could think of any excuse to explain their sudden break up.

“When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow.”

It was a rushed departure, Pansy agreed, but it was for the best.

“Where do you go?”

“To the United States.”

Severus jumped out of the armchair, a painful expression on his face. It was the first time that he showed as many emotions as today. Pansy had a sore heart.

“So far?”

“Yes. It’s – for the best. Papa has a sister who can welcome me until I get a hold of myself.”

The Prince closed his eyes, lips thinned. He shook his head. It was too sudden. He who had thought that despite his father’s death, everything would be alright realised that things were only getting worse since that woman had come here.

In the span of two months, his perfect life had become a nightmare. He did not want to marry this man. Not when the person he loved was standing in this this very room and was going to go to the other end of the world, because of the ramblings of a madwoman.

“How long?”

“I don’t know. A few weeks.”

That meant months. The worst part was that Severus couldn’t assure her that they could resume their romance once Hogwarts was out of danger again. Because it would mean divorce and it was not done in the Snape family. Even when the two protagonists did not love each other.

“I am going to go Sev,” Pansy said as she got up from the couch. “I still have things to do before I leave. I wanted to say goodbye before my departure.”

Severus left his seat and held his ex-fiancée before he kissed her on the forehead.

“I am sorry.”

“I know dear. I’m sorry too.”

Once Pansy left, Severus stayed a long time in the drawing room. Nobody came to bother him His staff understood that they could not expect anything from their prince until the next day.

Moreover, the next day, the man sensed that the day would be most difficult. Announcement of the breakdown of the engagement, initiate research to find this famous Harry Potter, cancellation of the wedding ceremony scheduled for the following week…

Once again, to forget, Severus was going to dig deep into the work until he lost his sanity. It was just so that she could go to bed exhausted and fall asleep without thinking about what had shattered her heart.

0o0

Pansy had been gone for a week. Severus had received an email stating that she had arrived and that all was well. She had also indicated that it would be good for both of them not to seek contact with the other in the coming weeks. Severus could only understand her.

The prince had had his secretary hire a private investigator to find Harry Potter who was somewhere in the big world. He could have hired the Hogwarts police but preferred that it still remain a secret.

Regarding Pansy’s escape, the princely cabinet had circulated, via the media, the rumour that the future princess had been afraid of what the crown involved and had not felt as ready as she had thought. Also, in order to avoid embarrassing her fiancé, she had preferred to stop everything.

It was an excuse that went admirably well with the population even if the bad tongues had underlined the fact that Countess Andrea Parkinson was not of this opinion. She was screaming loudly that her daughter had been pressured into breaking and refusing the crown. But nobody listened to him, especially not after the official denial made by Pansy in the wake. The explanation had the merit of making a young woman renounce the crown in all respects without discrediting her.

The hardest part was yet to come. The announcement of Severus’ engagement to a man who was not from the nobility and even less from Hogwarts.

In short, Harry Potter was very far from being the ideal party for a prince and the latter already sensed that the public and the newspapers were going to have a hard time with it.

“Young lady Parkinson is right, Your Highness,” told him his chief of staff, old Albus Dumbledore. “You do all of this for Hogwarts.”

Severus patted the weathered wood of his large desk. His entire cabinet was assembled. They were five members. All had been in the service of the late Prince Tobias. The current prince had not hesitated to take them back, each doing an excellent job.

“My father did not think one second about Hogwarts but about me when he heard of this – prophecy.”

“He did what any father would, I think, Your Highness,” intervened Lord Malfoy.

He was an advisor in charge of legislative, institutional, social and international affairs at Hogwarts. A businessman born at Hogwarts, married to a Hogwarts woman, he had a boy in his twenties who was very promising and who, for the time being, was finishing his studies in economics and finance in London.

Lucius was devoted to his family. Severus knew that he would have gone as far as to throw himself under a train for his child.

“I agree with that. However – I think that by not ignoring it, going to get this Potter, it would have made a lot of things easier. What about Mr. Potter? Do we have any news? It has been six days.”

He turned to the Counsellor, in charge of Communication, Public Relationship and Press office, Amelia Bones.

“Mr. Maugrey is a man of formidable efficiency, Your Highness. If he did not give any news, I suppose it is because he does not have any.”

Severus massaged his temples. The Principality was gradually falling into ruins, his marriage with the woman of his life was annulled, the one with the man who was intended for him, strongly compromised and in ten months, Hogwarts would no longer exist if Harry Potter was not on the throne. All because he was the reincarnation of an elemental who died centuries ago.

“Try to reach him to know to find where he is. This waiting is unbearable!”

“Yes Your Highness.”

The cabinet door opened on Hermione Granger, His Highness’ private secretary whose duties were to ensure that any directives issued by the prince were followed.

“Your Highness, the English Prime Minister is here.”

Severus held a sigh. The minister. He had forgotten him.

“Gentlemen, Madam, I regret having to close this meeting. Please excuse me.”

They all stood up at the same time as the prince, bowed briefly and left the office. Severus would have liked to give himself a few minutes of respite. He joined his guest in the small living room. Work above all. He would have plenty of time to sleep later.

“Mister Prime Minister,” he said as he entered.

0o0

It took another week for a return from the detective. The latter presented himself at the palace. Severus was surprised to meet the famous Alastor Moody, a former police officer who had started out on his own. His face was seamed with scars. Youthful mistakes, he said, and the prince hadn’t tried to find out more.

“What do you know?” Severus asked, straightforward.

“Everything is here, Highness,” Moody said tapping the carboard folder on his lap with the flat of his hand.

“I am listening.”

Knowing that this man had managed to find even a piece of information or a photograph of Harry Potter would be a great relief to Severus.

“I very little. Harry Potter was born on July 31, 1980, twenty-one years ago to Lily Potter née Evans and James Potter. The Potters died in a car crash on October 31, 1981. The child was not here. He was placed under his aunt and uncle’s guardianship and lived thirteen years in Surrey. In 1994, he disappears. According to the police, it was a runaway. That’s when Harry Potter’s life ends.”

“What?” Severus wondered.

Sibyl Trelawney hadn't been able to tell him that Potter was her future husband if it was to make him die years ago. It was impossible.

“I didn’t manage to go any further than September 19, 1994. It's– like he's dead.”

“I hope this is a joke!”

“I didn’t say he was, Your Highness. However, Harry Potter doesn’t exist anymore. On the other hand, at the same period, a Jack Daniel’s appeared.”

“Jack – Daniel’s? Does this have anything to do with the whiskey?”

“It would be a big coincidence,” admitted Moody, who had seen the allusion to the distillery of the same name. “In any case, the life of this kid is not rosy. We know almost nothing about him. I was able to take some photographs.”

“At least he has no criminal record,” Severus muttered. “Can I see the photographs?”

“Of course, Your Highness.”

Moody handed him the file. It was opened and Severus came across several pictures of his unknown fiancé whose face was not that unknown to him.

“He reminds me of this man, a famous jeweller. Potter.”

The very moment the name burst from his lips, the prince stared at Moody in bewilderment. He had already met a certain Fleamont Potter when he was just a child. The latter had come from time to time to the palace to make ornaments. He was the creator of the princely crown that Severus had worn on his coronation day. He remembered a jovial man, a little crazy. But it was above all this untidy mop that had marked him. He remembered asking Potter if he had combed his hair with a firecracker or if it was normal. Her father had been red with shame. In his defence, Severus was only four years old at the time. Fleamont had laughed, saying that he got this impossible hair from his father and his own son had inherited it.

“It’s his grandson. The only heir of the Potter House.”

Obviously, it was genetic.

“And no investigation was carried out when he disappeared?!” wondered the Prince.

Such a disappearance should have made the headlines. The kid was after all the descendant of this illustrious family and at the head of an impressive fortune.

“Yes, Your Highness. But without success.”

“Without success? You took two weeks to find him where others have not succeeded in how long? Seven years? Either the job was not done well or nobody cared about this child!”

Seeing the grimace Moody gave him, he knew he had hit the nail on the head.

“According to some people, her uncle and aunt asked to stop the search a month after her disappearance. No doubt in the hope of burying him and being able to touch his inheritance as soon as it is unlocked. Since the Potter kid was a minor at the time of his parents’ death, he could not touch what was due to him, everything being blocked in an account accessible only when he came of age. During the nine years, eleven months and thirty days following the majority of the holder, the money remains in this account. Then, if the beneficiary does not come forward, the content goes to immediate family.”

“I know the principle. Keep going. This Jack Daniel’s, what do you know?”

“He has nothing to do with what a Potter should do if he had touched the family fortune. Something he did not do. He’s currently living in a homeless shelter and– how can I tell you that without your being shocked, Your Highness?”

“Why do I have the feeling that whatever your words I will be shocked?”

He couldn’t quite sense what Moody was going to say to him. He expected the worst…

“Jack Daniel’s, also known as Harry Potter, is what you’d call a good-time girl, had he been female.”

… But certainly not at this confession which left him speechless.

“What?” he croaked.

“Sorry, Your Highness. He’s selling himself for money and I think it’s been a few years.”

“Jesus Christ, fucking hell,” Severus thundered, not caring the image he could give by swearing like a carter.

His fiancé was a prostitute. In his eyes the criminal record might have been preferable.

0o0

“Your Highness–”

“Vincent, accept the fact that I want to bring him to Hogwarts.”

Vincent Crabbe, one of his two bodyguards for nearly ten years, shook my head. This trip to London did not please him. Not because of the route and the destination, but because of the reason.

The fact that the future prince consort was a man who sold his body for a few pounds was not to delight the man in his forties, as large as he was tall, with ten years in the army. He was protecting his prince and had put his life at his service. He feared that going in search of this Harry Potter in the Night World might put Prince Severus in danger. After all, they were going to rub shoulders with human misery.

“This is where he is that– Pardon my frankness, Your Highness, but is there no solution?”

“I fear not.”

There was no other solution. Severus had no idea what to expect and it made him nervous.

Silence fell again in the small private jet stamped with the Hogwarts arms. Other than this intervention from Crabbe, no one had opened their mouths since they left the palace.

Severus had managed to postpone his appointments in order to free up his day. He had had his jet prepared for London. When they arrived there, a car had been hired and a driver would take care of driving them. It was only the easiest part. The hardest part was finding Potter. If Detective Moody was right, getting a hold of him would be pretty difficult. He could be anywhere in London. The address of the accommodation centre should only be used for the night. The rest of the time he had to be looking for clients.

The flight between Hogwarts and London lasted an hour. They landed in about ten minutes. Severus was consulting a map of the English capital. According to Moody and his recollections, the area where prostitution was the most important was Picadilly Circus. Harry might be there.

A prostitute. This is what his future husband was. Severus was already revolted at the idea of marrying a man. Now that he knew what his future fiancé’s profession was, he wanted to turn his back on his country and let go, even if it meant seeing Hogwarts be destroyed. It was beyond his strength. He might be a prince and dedicate his life to the city, but the weight of the crown had never weighed so heavily on him.

“Your Highness,” said Gregory Goyle a few minutes later. “We are going to land.”

Gregory was a simple man who had been hired four years earlier. He also had a military background. An exemplary career but the job had not suited him.

Severus buckled his seat belt and waited for the aircraft to begin its descent. He looked through the window. He saw nothing but the clouds beneath them. Dark clouds. The sovereign had often wondered how the pilots could know what was below, especially when there was this layer between them and the ground.

And then the plane finally descended. The view changed from cloudy to clearer. Below was London, the English capital, in the rain. Severus shook his head with the impression that as soon as he got there it was raining. It was a false impression because during his studies, the sun had proved its existence. It was even hot.

Long minutes later, the private jet landed on the runway. The prince unbuckled his belt and stood up, imitated by Crabbe and Goyle.

Protected by an umbrella and the collar of his coat pulled down over his neck to reduce the impact of wind and rain, Severus descended the stairs and was greeted by a driver who bowed before opening the door for him.

“Your Highness.”

It was the driver placed at their disposal for all visits. A discreet man who knew London like the back of his hand. In short, the ideal person.

“Where does His Highness want to go?” the driver asked once everyone was in the car.

“It is a good question. Everything that will be said here must not come out of here, is that clear?”

“What His Highness wishes, His Highness will have.”

“Thanks Brighton. I wish to go to Picadilly Circus.”

The vehicle started up. He left the tarmac then the airport, then entered the traffic. Brighton drove in silence. Goyle was in front while the prince and Crabbe were in the back.

The rain was falling in large drops outside. Passers-by thronged the sidewalks, slaloming between the puddles of water with long strides, some protected by an umbrella. Severus shook his head, not sure if he would find Harry in the rain.

“Finally, I prefer that we start with the shelter for the homeless. The community of Emmanuel.”

“Good, Your Highness.”

There he would have a better chance of finding the one he was looking for and if Potter wasn’t there, they could always tempt Picadilly Circus.

Leaning back in his seat, Severus was looking out the window. He didn’t know what he would find and it made him nervous. For a bit, he would have asked the driver for some music, except that it might annoy him a little more.

The tension in the cabin was palpable and wouldn't subside until the future Prince Consort was safe here.

Future prince consort. That word alone filled Severus with horror. He had often wondered in recent days what he had done to God to deserve such torment. Especially since thousands of questions kept turning in his mind, the most important being why?

This marriage was going to involve a lot of things, most of which Severus simply refused to think about. Especially on the wedding night. There was no way there would be consummation of the marriage. Especially not with a man who was very far from being a saint and who certainly had revolting practices. An unbearable triptych, both in Severus’ eyes and in those of the people. The prince was not new to intimate relationships. He had had his first mistress at seventeen. During his studies he had had a few girlfriends. With Pansy, their relationship was not chaste. However, nothing with men from near or far. Even heavily intoxicated, Severus had never kissed someone of his own gender.

As for the people, how were they going to react when they discovered the identity of the future prince? That Severus had done all of this for them, to keep his city from going up in smoke. The state religion being Catholicism, that would not be viewed well at all. Far from there. How to explain that it was because of a certain power in which Hogwarts drew its beauty? No one could believe such a thing. Even Severus hardly or hardly believed it.

And then there was him, Severus Snape. He had found it hard to look at himself in the mirror every morning since Pansy's departure. He felt like he was a monster, already having put Pansy aside to give the field free to a man he didn't love and would never love, and then do everything he could to put this man aside. power.

His cabinet was behind him, however Severus realized that the members of the council no longer saw him the same way.

The prince clenched his fists and focused on the landscape that slowly passed before his eyes. The weather matched his mood perfectly. Gloom and torrential rain. Sometimes the weather was appropriate.

The car suddenly stopped in front of a red brick building. Near one of the doors, one could read on a white sign “ _Centre of Housing of the Community of Emmanuel_ ”. People came in and out, but there was no trace of a brown hair sticking out all over the place.

“Vincent, can I ask you to go and see?”

Severus handed him a fairly recent photograph of Harry Potter. His bodyguard nodded and went out to face the weather a few steps away from the heavy downpour. The prince could have come with him but he did not wish to create a riot if anyone recognized him. He was the ruler of a small nation and wasn't sure his face spoke to many other than those who had seen him more than once on television.

He watched as Crabbe walked into the centre and the minutes began to tick by.

0o0

Vincent Crabbe was devoted to his prince. The latter could ask anything of him, he would do it without the slightest hesitation. However, going into that kind of place to find a homeless prostitute who would be on the throne in a few weeks was almost beyond his strength.

The bodyguard loved his sovereign, however he did not understand this choice. Severus had found the perfect fit in Pansy Parkinson, who was a perfectly fine woman. Why had he been forced to change for a man?

The prince had explained to him, in broad outline, in spite of this, this story remained very confused.

Vincent put those thoughts aside to focus on his mission. He entered the great room which was to serve as a refectory. Dozens of tables were lined up. Some people were eating or chatting. Farther on, behind a partition, Crabbe made out the beds, all empty. The walls were immaculate and the floor looked clean.

“Sir?” said a woman when she saw him enter.

He shook his coat to chase away the drops that the thick fabric had not had time to absorb and approached his interlocutor. She wore a white veil that hid her hair and a cross was visible over her thick woollen waistcoat.

“Hello,” he began in his thick, gruff voice.

When he was little he was thought to be stupid because he spoke slowly. He still spoke so slowly but no one dared to insult him any more given his size. His weight had always been a source of mockery as a child. Later, he had succeeded in transforming it into an asset. He had gained muscle and found a post in the Princely Guard.

“I am searching for somebody.”

The nun made a face. She wouldn't be of much help.

“The identity of those coming here is kept secret.”

What he feared happened.

“I only wish to know if this person–” he showed the picture of the boy “–is here.”

“What do you want with him?” the suspicious woman asked without even glancing at the image under her nose.

“Talk to him. Quite simply. I don’t mean any harm to him,” Vincent clarified, uncertain whether it would help him.

“He’s not here. He hasn’t been coming for two days, sighed the nun. You are more likely to find it on the street. Poor boy.”

She shook her head, sorry.

“Thank you so much.”

Vincent greeted her with a nod and left, wrapped in his thick, long dark coat. He joined the car and slipped into the back seat.

“He’s not here, Your Highness. I doubt the manager is hiding him. She was on the reserve at first but told me we could find him on the street.

“Picadilly Circus,” the prince ordered the driver. “It would have been a lot easier if he had been there. However, we cannot have it all. At least we know where he can be.”

The journey to the square was made in relative silence and a certain tension. It was not yet noon, yet the streets were all crowded. Moving forward was difficult, which did not allow the occupants of the car to calm down, on the contrary.

Vincent was looking around to find a face that could match the image he still held in his hand. The weather could have scared the maidens away, however the man saw it in the shelter, in ridiculously short clothes in the cool and rainy weather.

One word to describe them: vulgarity.

Crabbe was not stupid, he knew that most had not chosen this profession. It was more by obligation, to pay for studies or to get by. He wondered if Potter was the same. Should he offer his body because he could not afford to pay for his faculty?

Part of him said no. The kid would never have been in a shelter if he had been a student. So why was he doing this? Vincent did not see this young man doing this for fun.

0o0

The prince had his eyes open, looking for Harry Potter. So far he saw only passers-by under umbrellas and a few scantily clad women, but not the slightest sign of the young man. Until he saw him give a middle finger within fifteen metres of them to a car and back up, furious.

Severus looked at him at length, almost greedily. So far, the only images of him had shown a pretty cute boy. The reality was quite different.

For Severus, the term beauty was a far cry from the man who was so close. His dishevelled hair was darkened by the rain which soaked it gleefully, making the ears point more in all directions. Drops ran down his wet cheeks. His simple clothes – and far from vulgar – were soaked.

“God almighty,” he murmured, mouth dry.

Without being able to understand it, let alone explain it, his heartbeat sped up in his chest and his mouth went dry.

Had Harry been a woman, Severus would have said straightaway that he had just experienced love at first sight. Except that the other was a man and that he himself preferred the other sex.

“Your Highness?”

“Come closer Brighton. The boy on your right, the one with the grey sweatshirt. Stop in front of him.

“Your Highness, he is a disreputable person,” exclaimed the driver, outraged by the request.

“Do as you are told!”

“A-alright Your Highness,” the man stammered, hoping that no one would force him to attend what he considers to be against his morale.

He had driven a lot of people. In his car there had been celebrities. So he had seen and heard things. But none of the clients had ever dared to go find a prostitute and push him to stop in front of one of them.

Much to his relief, and to Severus’ frustration, the kid opened his eyes wide when the car pulled to a stop beside him before racing like a rabbit.

“Vincent, Gregory, try to catch up with him,” ordered the prince. “Brighton, follow him as best as you can.”

0o0

Harry was running like he had never run in his life. Fear gave him wings and pushed him to always go further.

He turned once and saw in horror two men chasing him.

McNair had therefore found his trace. But what had he expected when he left the shelter? That he was left alone when his debt was not paid? He still owed this sinister man ten thousand pounds. And now, he had his two cracks on his heels who had to try to get him back to finish the job.

Harry had felt lucky to have had nearly a fortnight’s respite. He felt he should have used them to try to collect his debt. Except that he hadn't wanted to. After he left his apartment, he had felt so bad that he couldn't even go out into the street and hustle.

Two days earlier, he had decided to return to what he knew, the street. The centre was good, but in small quantities. At least Harry had been able to rest a bit, eat his fill, and take hot showers.

Since his release, he had managed not to sleep outside. His two clients had agreed to keep him for the night and Harry had been able to extract several hundred pounds from them handsomely. However, during those evenings, he hadn’t been able to sleep much. The last one had left traces that his body still remembered. His butt was sore, something that hadn’t happened to him in… years. It had to be said that his short-lived lover was very well-hung and had been quite eager.

Harry glanced behind his back and noticed that the two gorillas were still running. They had more stamina than he had expected and were approaching him a little too quickly for his liking. The young man turned a corner of a street and hastened to enter the first store which presented itself to him. If the two morons hadn’t seen him, he might take a breather and go back to where he came from.

With his gaze riveted on the window and his body well hidden behind a mannequin, Harry watched the street attentively. The salesman, a handsome boy a little older than him, let him do it while making sure he didn’t steal anything.

His heart seemed to calm down a little, panicked by the race he had just experienced. As the adrenaline eased a bit, Harry found himself laughing. It was stupid to chuckle in a moment like this except it was nervous.

Her breathing was still heavy and painful. Each breath reminded him of his broken rib, which was slowly merging, only it still hurt. The doctor said it took a good month to feel nothing and another month to be completely healed. Harry could count himself happy to be alive and more or less whole. For a few more moments if they were to find him.

He stood there almost five minutes, lurking in a corner, his legs aching from running like a madman, and then decided the danger was over. After all, no one had entered the store since he arrived. I had to admit that the place was hardly conducive to so-called normal purchases since Harry had decided to break into a sex shop.

He slowly stood up and when his feet started to move forward, he thought his legs were going to let go.

“Now I understand why the teachers said not to sit down,” Harry muttered as he walked out.

It was a bad idea. The black car was there, parked, engine on.

With his throat dry and his heart pounding, Harry stood there, planted in the doorway. For a little, he would have cried.

Why had he had to leave the centre? To have stayed another week or two would have been okay. He could have been forgotten. Here he was going to pay dearly for his delay and this flight.

He could have run away again but not sure that his legs were supporting him. Especially since his ribs were painful with each breath. However, to approach the car with the closed and tinted windows was to sign one’s own death. As a result of this tugging, Harry was standing on the sidewalk. McNair’s two gorillas casually appeared and stood behind him.

So they knew exactly where he was hiding and waited for their prey to come out to pluck it like a ripe fruit.

It was just perfect.

A hand rested on his shoulder, heavy, and he was dragged towards the car. Harry refrained from removing those fingers from there. The window swung open to reveal not Walden McNair but a stranger who looked him over from head to toe before nodding. He was invited to go inside.

A little reassured, the young man did so, drenched like soup and trembling in all his limbs with cold and fear.

The aft deck was actually two seats located opposite each other. Harry took his seat with his back to the road, facing the stranger. He was joined by one of the bodyguards as the other climbed up front.

“Go, Brighton.”

The car restarted. There was a heavy silence. The diffused heating partially warmed Harry’s chilled body. He could have relaxed if the reason for his presence was not his doing.

“Then?” said the stranger.

Harry looked at it quickly. Raven hair tied in a ponytail, dark eyes, large nose, pale skin, dark circles, emaciated face. More beautiful than McNair, that was obvious, but no less dangerous if they worked together. Whatever, for the prostitute, McNair was the type to go it alone and only bother with minions.

“I don’t have the money,” Harry replied in a voice as confident as possible.

He cursed himself when he realized that it was shaking.

The other stared at him, an eyebrow raised in surprise.

“I beg your pardon? What money?”

“You don’t work for – drop it. Who’re you?”

“Who am I not working for?” his interlocutor asked politely and Harry noticed a slight accent.

This man came from Northern England. Even Scotland perhaps.

“Forget it,” murmured Harry as he closed his eyes, suddenly tired.

He was fine with the heater, was not safe, but not in McNair’s hands. His body and mind tired from those two days when Harry hadn’t slept much and had been on his guard. The race had also played a role.

Without realizing it, he fell asleep in front of the dumbfounded looks of the occupants of the back seat.

0o0

With his elbow against the glass and the fingernail of his index finger tapping his teeth, Severus stared at the package in the car, dumbfounded to have seen it drift off to sleep. He soaked the leather seat and the carpet with water and didn't even realise it.

From afar, Severus had assured that his future husband was more than handsome. Up close, he gave off something inexplicable, inhuman. The features of his face were of a delicacy while giving him a masculine physique. The Prince did not know what to think of the person sleeping on the bench opposite him.

“Your Highness, do we have to go to the airport?” asked one of the bodyguards.

“No. Not yet. Keep driving Brighton.”

“Yes Your Highness.”

Severus returned his attention to the street and the buildings that paraded past the other side of the glass. He would have liked to get back to Hogwarts soon enough, however taking this kid away without asking his advice was considered kidnapping and His Highness had no desire to be prosecuted even though he had diplomatic immunity. The more so as the sleeper must have some goods to go to seek before leaving, because there was no question of leaving the young man here. Harry Potter would go with them, willingly or by force.

“We will wait for him to awake, we will fetch his belongings and we will go home.”

With a little luck, they would be at Hogwarts before teatime.

It took Harry twenty minutes to emerge from his sleep and look at Severus as if a second head had grown next to the first.

“Slept well?”

Potter furrowed his brows, visibly not entirely awake and straightened before violently shivering. With soaked clothes, it would be surprising for him not to get sick.

“I am afraid you will get sick staying in these clothes.”

“Don’t like the contact of leather on the skin, ‘s not pleasant,” groaned their guest.

“I beg your pardon?”

“What? It’s not what you wanted? Unless…”

Much to Severus’ horror the emerald gaze turned seductive and a flirtatious smile spread across full lips. Her future husband leaned towards him and put his hand on his thigh to move slowly up to the groin. The palm was cold. Despite his pants, he could sense it.

His Highness let him do it without knowing how to react, too shocked to push him away.

Vincent hastened to help him and sent Potter back to his seat in front of him. The boy laughed after being surprised.

“Fuck. You’ve never done this with blokes? There’s all the girls you want in the street! Why you chose me?”

Severus bit back a moan of annoyance. This was what he feared, Potter saw him as a potential client when just half an hour earlier he was terrified of getting into the car with them. It didn’t take long for the Prince to guess that the young man had thought he was being chased by someone else who must have employed bodyguards and had a car similar to this one. The answer to his mental question was likely to displease him if he got it.

“Why do you think you are here?

“Dunno, you want a whore?”

“I don’t know if I must laugh or if I must cry,” Severus said to his bodyguards. “No, I do not search for a – whore, as you say.”

“I owe you money?” Harry said, suspicious.

“No.”

“Then I dunno.”

The prince let out a long sigh and clearly saw a slight smile on Crabbe's lips. The latter laughed at him. Clearly.

“Do you have many clients running after you?”

“No,” admitted Harry. “Usually, if people run after me, it’s because I owe cash.”

“Does it happen often? Owing people money?”

He was pushing Potter to give him the answer he didn't want. Sometimes Severus scared himself.

“How d’s’that concern you?” replied the kid, spitting postilions.

“In view of your attitude earlier, it seemed to me entitled to ask why you fled.”

“It’s not your business.”

The provocative attitude was far away, replaced by withdrawal.

“Alright,” surrendered Severus. “Now answer my question, what do you think you are doing here?”

“What do I know! I caught your eye. Except that to keep me, it’s not cheap. It’s beyond your means.”

“Believe that you did not catch my eye. However, I intend to keep you free of charge.”

“Oh no,” sneered Harry. “Don’t think so. I earn my living by being fucked, and I’m paid. Being fucked for free, it’s not possible. Only couples do that. Married or not, I don’t give a fuck.”

“Well, that is interesting what you are saying. Because it is exactly that.”

“Eh?” was the only highly intellectual answer Potter could say. “It’s a joke.”

He was shocked for the first time since he came. Which shouldn’t happen to him very often.

“No,” Severus assured, very calm.

The kid settled back in his seat, crossed his arms and legs before uncrossing them with a grimace.

“You’re nuts. I’ve had crazy people, but people like you, never. You have to stop smoking, man, it’s not good for the brain. Well, you stop the car, I have a job waiting for me.”

“Nobody will stop the car and you will not hustle, Mr. Potter.”

Third time, Severus mentally counted. No one was to use his real last name. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be there, his mouth open and his eyes bulging.

“ How do you know?” Harry whispered defensively, frowning.

“I know a certain amount of things concerning you. In particular that Jack Daniel’s is only an assumed name and that your name is Harry Potter. The rest doesn’t matter.”

“That's good, you know my name. But who’re you?”

“Severus Snape and I have high hopes of bringing you home to marry you. So where do you live so we can pick up your stuff and go to the airport?”

“Hey, wait, what?!” Potter bellowed. “You can’t just throw this in my face and expect me to say yes. You’re not even gay.”

Severus noted that his guest had not recognised him. He mustn’t know who the Snape family were. The Prince did not take offense. Maybe it was better in the end.

“The reasons will be explained to you later, I promise you.”

“No. I don’t wanna get married.”

“So you want to continue living this miserable life? Doing hustlers every night, squatting in squalid places suits you?”

“It's always better than being groomed and serving as an occasional inflatable doll,” Potter quipped.

Something made Severus say that the kid knew what he was talking about.

“Look, I do not mean to use you like… that. As for being maintained… that is a fact. But you will have obligations.”

“Marital duty? Cool,” his interlocutor quipped. “Still not interested.”

“Doesn’t the prospect of a… better life speak to you?”

He had almost said more respectable but doubted that it would be well received.

“A house, three meals a day, free to do what you want, car available, servants.”

“You sell dreams but I no longer believe in them. Children’s tales, charming princes, I’ve passed the age.”

“Let’s make a deal. What are your rates for a month?”

“You can’t afford it?”

“Rates,” Severus demanded, slowly losing his patience.

The other was devious. More than he would have thought. To refuse such an offer, Potter must have been drooling.

“With or without intercourse?”

“Without.”

Severus saw the cogs under the brown mop snap. He had to judge the situation, see where the hidden defect was.

“Fifty. Thousand,” the kid clarified.

“Good. If at the end of this month you still want to go back to the streets and continue your – business, I will pay you fifty thousand pounds. Is it alright for you?”

He reached out to seal their deal. Potter slipped his own and squeezed it.

“Okay.”

“Perfect. Do you have belongings to take?”

“Some. In an old building on Drury Lane.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello beautiful readers,
> 
> First things first : Disclaimer  
> I do not own the Harry Potter Universe nor its characters. They belong to J. K. Rowling, all rights belong to her. This work is a translation of the fanfiction "SAS, Son Altesse Sérénissime" written and posted by Nanola Meylhann on fanfiction.net. I only own the translation.
> 
> On this joyful note, I hope you enjoy this piece of work.

As the car drove toward the squat Harry had left his things in, Harry couldn’t believe his luck.

Fifty thousand pounds sterling for a month of doing nothing. For the young man, it was an unexpected opportunity to easily make a little money. He might have looked for the confusion – because there was bound to be one – and failed to realize the sight. Yet Harry could boast that he knew how to sniff out trouble pretty quickly. He was always praised and it had saved him many problems in the past, even though he had had others.

With Walden McNair, he had sensed the danger but had stepped into it and bitterly regretted it. For now, his debt was still unpaid and that bastard had added ten thousand pounds on top of the six thousand already given. As if he thought Harry was a cash dispenser.

Moreover, the young man had difficulty understanding the leader of the London underworld. One day he left twenty-four hours and the next day he allowed a week when he knew perfectly well that after having beaten the unfortunate, it would take him more than a week to collect the sum.

Either way, the victim wasn’t sure whether they would survive or end up in one piece. Harry had been a bit lucky but knew it wouldn’t last. Until this day, he hadn't seen McNair and hoped it would last. Hiding while continuing his job was difficult and above all very tiring.

When Harry thought back to his nap in Snape's car, he felt silly that he had let himself go to sleep. Usually his mind was so peaceful only in very rare circumstances. What hadn’t happened to him for… months, maybe even years. In the centre, he had rested, however his nights were not very long.

After seven years on the streets, Harry had learned not to sleep only intermittently, just to watch over his possessions. Since then, it had become a reflex. He woke up regularly. It had served him well on the colder nights he was under a bridge. At least he had been able to stay alive.

At least that was his humble opinion.

A shiver seized him, reminding him that he was soaked. The diffused heating was not hot enough to manage to dry her clothes and this only accentuated the temperature difference between her skin and her wet clothes.

“A miracle you did not get sick,” Snape said.

“I said I wouldn’t undress,” Harry replied, keeping to himself that he rarely got sick.

Getting naked in front of several people was something the young man did not like. He did not care to undress in front of a client, but not in public and not when the others remained dressed from head to toe.

“I was just making one observation. If you could avoid showing off on your high horse I would appreciate it. Especially since there is not the slightest reason to get upset.”

One thing was certain, Harry wasn’t going to put up with the pedantic look the man in front of him put on for long. It was as if he wanted to show her that he had a certain education in relation to Harry, that he wanted to rise to a higher level and devalue his interlocutor.

“Why d’you want me?” Harry inquired, preferring to change the subject.

Angering his benefactor would only cause him to review his copy and decide not to continue with him.

“I seem to have assured you that I will explain everything to you later.”

Harry mentally winced. He who had hoped to have answers…

“When?”

“When we get home.”

“Where is it?”

“In the North.”

Snape deftly dodged. Was he worried that the answers to his questions would force Harry to change options eventually? However, his lack of response made Harry want to go back on his word.

“’re not chatty.”

“Drury Lane,” the driver announced.

“Can you leave me here? I’ll go get my things. Don’t want you to be attacked, especially not with the nice pumps you wear.”

Shoes that must have been worth their price. Black, leather, hand sewn. Little wonders Harry could never afford.

“Vincent and Gregory will accompany you, so that you do not let us down.”

“I bet,” Harry cried, dumbfounded that he could be accused of wanting to set sail.

He had to be honest, the thought had crossed his mind as the vehicle pulled into Drury Lane. Now it was impossible, not with the two mirrored cabinets that were going to frame it.

As he opened the door, he stopped dead and closed it immediately, his heart pounding and his limbs trembling.

“Everything is fine?” Snape asked.

For a bit, Harry almost thought he detected concern, but he put that aside. Snape had no reason to be worried about him.

“Yeah, no problem. It’s just cold and…”

He showed off his still wet outfit. The excuse was perfect to hide his confusion and partly true.

The reality was quite different. Harry had seen McNair and his two underlings across the street. They entered the apartment building where Potter had left his things. The young man had nothing very important except the photo of his parents which was still in the back pocket of his pants.

Once again, Harry opened the door and carefully got out of the vehicle. The cold assailed him and he began to chatter his teeth. He was joined by the two gorillas. With McNair’s presence in the scene, the fact that Vincent and Gregory were by his side, there was something reassuring about it. At least he wouldn’t be alone in the confrontation. Because there would be a confrontation, it was inevitable, and it would end in bloodshed.

Behind him, the door slammed, causing him to turn around sharply to face Snape who was watching the building with a wary eye.

“Here we go,” Harry muttered to hide his confusion.

If Snape was present, they would be in a position of strength against McNair and his minions. Harry felt a little more secure. Vincent and Gregory were tough enough to stop Walden’s two bodyguards.

It remained to be seen who would emerge from this building alive.

“Well, the driver doesn’t want to come? So that we have fun?”

A slight smile answered him and Snape began to walk. Luckily the rain had stopped falling, only a sticky and very unpleasant drizzle remained. Harry couldn’t help but bury his head in his shoulders, trying to escape the cold that pierced him. Of course he was never sick, but there was a beginning to everything. He had been in his damp clothes for long hours, and a cold could point the tip of his nose without warning.

They entered the building and Harry put all his senses on alert. He scoured for any suspicious shadow, any noise that might not be in a place that was supposed to be empty.

“What floor are you on?” Snape quipped.

“Very funny, laughing my ass off. Ground floor. Back right.”

Harry wanted to let the trio go first. At the slightest shot, he could always take a tangent. Except that a somewhat brutal hand pushed him forward. A simple glance behind his back told him it was Snape.

His sneakers squeaked loudly in the hallway strewn with trash and the walls covered with tags of all kinds. In every room without doors, you could see camp beds, mattresses placed on the floor. All in blatant disorder. There were homeless people, junkies, prostitutes. The worst of human dregs were found here.

And then he stopped in front of “his apartment”. It was a totally empty three-room apartment that he shared with two or three other people, including a drug addict who had wanted to give him drugs. Harry had almost agreed before remembering that his dealer couldn't be very sharp and that he could give him anything and everything.

Harry walked in, looking for McNair’s presence. He was surprised not to see anyone. He gathered his things from a backpack and wondered what to do with the seedy sleeping bag he had managed to save from the dumpster. Leave it or throw it away? In a month, he might still need it.

“While we are at it and before you risk pneumonia, it would be a good idea for you to change.”

“You really want to see me naked, eh? And he says he’s straight.”

He was annoyed that he didn’t see any treacherous blush on Snape’s cheeks. Was this man insensitive then? No, Harry thought, he had managed to make her lose his ability momentarily by stroking her thigh in the car.

“I doubt that what you hide under these layers is very different from what all the men have on this planet. Unless you are actually a woman and in those cases the show is likely to be more suitable for me,” Snape replied.

“Arsehole,” Harry breathed annoyed.

“Your vocabulary is very poor, it is distressing.”

“Fuck you!” Harry growled as he removed his sweatshirt which he dropped to the floor.

He rummaged in his bag for something to dress warmly. A few minutes later, he was all set. He took a quick tour of the owner and was about to leave when the sound of heels nearby made him step back. Less than ten seconds later, McNair’s wrinkled, flabby head came into view.

“Well, well, Jack,” said the latter with a big smile. “We were looking for you.”

“And you are?” Snape interjected coolly.

“A friend of Jack’s.”

Harry saw the two gorillas stand behind their boss, arms crossed and coat open so as to reveal the weapon they carried on their belt. The young man swallowed nervously and tightened the strap of his bag.

“A friend of Jack’s? Interesting.”

McNair’s face twitched for a moment before sketching a sardonic smile.

“You are?”

“A person in a hurry who would like to leave this place rather quickly.”

Snape pointed to the door where McNair’s two guards still stood. Harry glanced behind his back and found that Vincent and Gregory were just as threatening, if not more.

“I am not sure I can accede to your request. At the very least, Jack and I have a little chat to finish. So I’m not holding you back.”

“Oh.”

Potter felt his stomach turn to lead at the mere thought of Snape leaving it in McNair’s hands.

“That’s unfortunate,” Snape said. “Gentlemen, do you think if I leave our friend here, will I have a chance to see him alive again? No?” he said, seeing his own men shake their heads, “that is what it seemed to me. I am afraid I have to insist and ask you to let us through. Please.”

This time McNair didn’t seem to want to be polite. Harry didn’t know him but he knew how to recognize the signs. Their opponent’s dark eyes narrowed and the jaw hardened.

“Listen to me, nob. I don’t know where you think you are but you’re going to get your arse out of here and faster than that or so…”

The two guys put a hand on their gun and looked threatening.

But to Harry’s surprise, Severus smiled and took a step closer. He didn’t seem to be afraid, not like him who was shaking and was close to getting hurt.

“I’m afraid you haven’t understood, sir. I’m leaving with Mr Daniel’s whether you agree or not. And before you have the foolish idea of telling these gentlemen to kill us or at least hurt us badly, know that you are risking the maximum penalty because you are going after a member of the government. For my part, I have what is called diplomatic immunity and my men are covered as well. Just think about taking us hostage and it may be the last thing you do in your miserable and pathetic life! Now tell those two funny guys to let us through or I promise I will run all the police forces in this country after you. I only have one thing to do, one word to say.”

McNair waved his men away. He was furious beyond words.

Harry couldn’t believe his luck. He was free to pass but besides, he was alive. Passing in front of McNair’s two henchmen, he could not restrain a curtsy and kissed his opponent, being careful to stay between Vincent and Gregory.

“Fuck, how you made them wet their knickers,” he exclaimed once outside. “It was– fuck, it was wow! And when you mentioned diplomatic immunity–”

Severus turned to him, grabbed his hair and pushed him against a wall. Fear resurfaced and for a moment Harry wondered if staying with McNair wouldn’t have been better for his safety.

“Listen to me, Potter, I do not know what you did to them and I do not care but do it again and chances are I leave you in your shit. Clear?”

“Yes sir,” Harry stammered.

“Good. We are going then.”

Vincent or Gregory – the young man did not know who was who – opened the door. Snape and Harry resumed their places, as did the bodyguards.

“Airport,” ordered the man coldly before walling in the silence.

Harry refrained from asking him if he was a secret agent or the police. His aplomb and his way of changing words was surprising. He sensed that asking just the question would get him a one-way ticket to McNair’s arms, something he flatly refused.

Generally Harry was silent, cautious, aware that any questions he asked would be frowned upon.

After long traffic jams in London, they arrived at the airport. Harry naively thought that the driver was going to drop them off at the door. He was surprised when he saw the car enter the runway and park near a private jet struck with unknown weapons. He did not realize that the vehicle had stopped or that the door was open.

“Do you plan to camp there?” Snape taunted him. “I would like to leave fairly quickly.”

“Huh?”

“Come!”

“Whose’s that?” Harry blurted out, unable to hold back, nodding at the plane.

“To me. Now stop the chatter and go upstairs. Quickly if possible!”

Snape looked a little nervous looking around. Harry hurried up the stairs to an open door and hissed in admiration at the luxury of the jet. The seats were in leather and the rest in varnished wood.

“Well…”

“Sit down,” Severus invited, taking a seat in one of the comfortable looking chairs. “Vincent, tell the pilot to take off.”

The bodyguard bowed respectfully and walked into the cabin while the door was closed.

“Mr Potter, sit down and please fasten your seatbelt, we will be leaving shortly.”

Not quite recovered from his surprise, Harry obeyed. He tucked his bag under one of the seats and did what he was asked to know how to fasten his belt. The chair was as soft as you could wish. A real wonder for Harry’s butt, used to something hard. The young man relaxed significantly. It didn’t matter where he went, if everything else was as perfect as this plane, everything was fine.

As the aircraft began to reverse and then roll onto the track, Harry latched onto the armrests. It was the first time he took the plane and was not the most reassured. His anguish was accentuated when the machine picked up speed and the nose suddenly rose.

“You are safe,” Snape tried casually in his chair.

“You have good ones yourself. We talk about plane crashes regularly.”

“It is the safest means of transport. There are fewer plane accidents than there are cars.”

If that was meant to reassure him, it was a waste of time as Harry almost dug his fingernails into the armrests, slammed back and the breath trapped in his chest.

Then the plane stabilized and Potter could breathe.

“You see. It is just a take-off.”

“Yeah. It’s what they say. Who are you?” he said brutally, remembering that Snape didn’t want to say anything to him. “Are you going to tell me now?”

“Would you like something to eat?” eluded his interlocutor.

It took Harry’s stomach to hear eating for him to growl loudly. Potter grumbled an answer that he himself didn’t quite understand. He remembered that his last meal was the day before, at the lunch he had taken on the go between two customers.

An air hostess dressed in a purple suit and dizzying heels appeared and laid down in front of Harry a steaming plate of what must have been steak and small vegetables.

“I have to piss, where are the toilets? If there is any here.”

“Goodness, your language continues to deteriorate. At the bottom of the device on your right.”

Harry struggled for a moment with his belt and stood before scampering, clinging to the seats or the wall, towards the back of the plane. Contrary to what he might have thought, it didn’t shake. It was even as stable as dry land. In the end, flying wasn’t so bad. At least if it weren’t for this infernal buzz.

Returning to his seat, Harry found that the plate was still there and that Snape was eating. Vincent and Gregory were seated, one at the front and the other at the rear with a part in front of them.

“Eat before it cools down.”

“You won’t say anything to me until I’ve eaten, is that it?”

“That is the idea,” Snape admitted. “We have an hour flight.”

“Are you a cop or the CIA? The FBI?”

“Nothing of the sort. Now shut up and eat.”

Alas, Harry started his perfectly cooked steak and ate his vegetables. He had to recognize that it was divine. Used to eating things that often came from garbage, he felt like a prince or a king.

Once his plate was finished, he forced himself not to lick the sauce because it was not polite, it was easy to say, he had manners. He noticed that he was the first to finish. Snape was taking his time and the other two ate while reading the newspaper.

“Dessert, sir?” the hostess whispered, removing her plate.

“Uh– yeah. Thank you,” Harry added to the roundabout when the young woman was already gone.

She came back with a piece of chocolate fondant. For a bit, Harry would have drooled over it. Chocolate was a delicacy he hadn’t eaten in years. He had tasted it once or twice at the Dursleys’ house and the sweet taste had struck him as the best thing in the world.

It didn’t take long for the unfortunate piece of cake to be swallowed up.

“I could get used to that,” he breathed, looking around.

No one answered him. He settled down comfortably in his chair and didn't move.

“Good,” Snape said suddenly after he had finished eating. “I think it is high time to answer your questions, if you still have some. Or, I will let you sleep. You seem to me to be well on your way for another nap.”

“Are you really going to answer me?” Harry asked suspiciously.

“Well yes. It was planned. I am listening to you.”

“Who are you? Where are we going? And what do you want from me?

“If those are your only questions. As far as I am concerned, I have already answered you. We are going to Hogwarts and I thought I answered that question too.”

Harry pretended he hadn't heard the sarcasm.

“What is Hogwarts?”

“A town located on the Anglo-Scottish border. A small state to be precise.”

“You finished paying you my head?” the little brown man moaned, his arms crossed. “There’s nothing at the border! No country!”

At least that was what his college geography lessons revealed.

“Oh. So you know everything about everything. This is very interesting–” Harry easily noticed the irony oozing in Snape’s voice. “Know that Hogwarts has existed for a very long time. It is a Principality, a territory ruled by a prince. There are only four recognized as such, the Principalities of Liechtenstein, Andorra, Monaco and Hogwarts.”

The man took a sip of water and continued:

“Hogwarts is not a vast territory. A little bigger than Monaco–”

“Yeah, great,” Harry replied, sensing the history lesson coming. “You, what function do you have? Because to have the jet and bodyguards–”

“This is His Serene Highness Prince Severus Snape,” Gregory said, looking up from his journal.

Harry paused for a moment, while the information made its way through his mind. And then he burst out laughing.

“That’s a good one. The prince. Well let’s see and I am the Queen of England. No, but no kidding,” he sneered.

The fact that his interlocutor was what he claimed was highly laughable. He didn't behave like a prince, especially not after what he had said to McNair.

“This is not a joke,” Snape assured him, catching Harry off guard.

“Are you really a prince?” Potter repeated, dumbfounded.

“Yes.”

“Oh God damn it. Fuck!”

A slew of more flowery curses came from his lips, making the prince shake the head. But Harry was too surprised to pay any attention to it.

“You’re a prince,” he said for the second time.

“It is starting to get a little boring.”

Potter recovered.

“And what do I have to give you? Majesty?”

“Highness, simply.”

“Oh, Your Highness,” Harry replied, standing up to sketch a grotesque curtsy.

“You are pitiful, Potter. It is heart breaking.”

Said Potter broke into a broad smile, hilarious. Just before remembering that he was bound to the man by a contract for a period of one month. He also remembered what this man had told him, that he wanted to marry him. Now he didn’t want to laugh at all. Because this story was starting to smell bad.

“Ok, what’s the matter here?”

“There is no confusion, Mr. Potter.”

“You are a prince and you said you wanted to marry me. I’m not stupid, I know that in this world, people like you don’t marry their own sex, one because it can’t be done and two, queers and lesbians, they never could make children like straight people. As far as I know, you’re a guy and so am I. You’re not gay. So why do you want to marry me? Especially since I’m very far from being from your world, as you’ve seen.”

“It is a fact. You are absolutely right.”

“So?” Harry insisted when he realized that the answer he was waiting for did not come. “Why?”

To his surprise, he saw Snape fidget for a moment and peek through the window and then sigh.

“The explanation is – rather strange and I highly doubt that you believe it.”

“Still. I’m not that stupid either. I can take it.”

“It is not about understanding or not and nobody questions your intelligence. It is just that this story is–”

“Spit it out Highness.”

He could hear almost everything.

“After your reaction to my title, I am afraid you will have a heart attack, but okay. Sorry in advance for the historical passage, it is necessary.”

The emerald irises closed. History, Harry had always hated this subject. His teachers had never lived up to his expectations. They were churning out a course, dates and names without the slightest passion.

“Hogwarts was built around the year 1000 by four people. I will spare you the names, it would not mean anything to you. They were – some sort of wizards, mages. They mastered the elements.”

“Magic doesn’t exist.”

It was what his obese uncle had drummed into him all his childhood. He still saw Vernon Dursley screaming, when a cartoon was on television, that we had to change the channel because it was all nonsense, that there was no magic. Harry had preferred never to contradict him.

“Well about this, I will not take you back. However, for the past few weeks, I have been wondering. They disappeared, dead, leaving behind a person who possesses their powers. As far as I know, this person is dead, murdered by others. No doubt because of his powers, this point remains obscure. Still, centuries later, my ancestor moved to Hogwarts, had a castle and an estate built. All of this flourished.

“Yeah, great, but – I still can’t see it.”

These stories of magic and the like tended to fascinate him as much as they repelled him.

“I’m coming. A few weeks ago some changes took place. Apparently, Hogwarts is dying.”

“Huh?’

It was certain, Snape was mad. At least that was what Harry could tell after hearing what he had just heard. A city could not die.

“I told you it was–”

“Think to consult my old man. Because there you have it for years of therapy with a good shrink.”

“Perhaps you are right,” admitted the prince calmly.

“Yes!”

“And again, you haven’t heard everything.”

“Oh because there are still some? Shit. What are you going to tell me? That I’m supposed to save your hometown?”

If that was it, the plane could turn around. One, because this whole thing was sheer madness. Two, because if it was all true – and he strongly doubted it – he was not concerned.

He searched the onyx for something that could make him understand without the words that he was not there for it. However, Severus did not look at him for a moment. He had turned his head towards the porthole.

“You’re kidding,” Harry cried. “This is a fucking joke!”

“At the dawn of the millennium, the Child of the Four will take up the torch from his fathers. He will be born when the seventh month dies. Marked with the sign of lightning, He will appear in blood under the gaze of his mother. At the dawn of the millennium, one other than the Child alongside the Prince will see Hogwarts disappear from the lands.”

A prophecy that made Harry shiver and made him nauseous. His meal seemed to go up. The young man went to the bathroom and threw up what he had just swallowed. Once his stomach was empty, he dropped to the ground and put his head in his hands.

Snape couldn’t have made it up in seconds. Not when Harry had never given him his date of birth and no one knew he had a lightning bolt scar on his forehead. Scar that he took great care to hide.

He didn’t think he was very smart, but with all this information put to rest, the identity of the Child of Four was very clear: him.

“What a jerk!” Harry scolded himself. “Fuck, you’re really stupid! Didn’t you have enough with Peter? Didn’t you understand? You always have to see the dough! The trap was big and you, like a moron, ran headlong into it. You stupid Potter!”

Not for a single moment was there any question of believing that this could be a blatant lie. Because Harry believed in it. He believed in this prophecy. For the good and simple reason that he had heard a version similar to the one living in the brackets of Peter. The latter had hired, for fun, a clairvoyant who had read in the young man's hand. She had predicted that he would be a prince and that he had an important task to accomplish. Potter had laughed and had forgotten.

It had come back to him like a slap in the face.

His head slammed once or twice against the panel then he stood up to splash water on his face before returning to sit down.

“I will understand that you want to stop everything and–”

“Shut up! You know, you would’ve been the first to throw this at me, I would have told you to fuck yourself. Except you’re not the first and – God damn it, why does my life always have to be such a mess?!”

Now he wanted to cry.

“I knew there was some confusion somewhere.”

“Has anyone told you about this – prophecy?” Severus asked.

“More or less. I was made to understand that I had a role to play with crowned heads, that I’d be a prince. It was a clairvoyant who told me that. As they’re only charlatans, I didn’t believe it. But hey, apparently, it’s not all bullshit. Yet it sounds like the worst stand-up story I’ve ever heard. Damn, a Founder’s Child–” he sneered, a somewhat hysterical laugh. “I don’t even know who they are, the founders.”

“These are the people who created Hogwarts. My father heard about this prophecy around twenty years ago and who will be sitting next to me. You. He refused to believe it. Twenty years later– even what he refused turned out to be right. And all the signs prove it. However, there is something that bothers me. The prophecy mentions a mark of lightning. Have you been struck by lightning?”

“No.”

He unveiled his forehead with the white lightning-shaped scar marked in his flesh. He had always had it. No one had been able to tell her where she was from.

“I see.”

“What does it mean at the dawn of the millennium? You said Hogwarts was built in the year 1000. We are in the year two thousand. Second millennium. They messed up.”

“I think it means millennium after the death of the Founders. And Hogwarts was built around the year 1000.”

Harry rubbed his eyes.

“It’s really a big mess your thing,” he asserted.

“I agree with that.”

No one could say otherwise, that would be a lie.

“And what should I do in this story?”

“According to the prophecy, appear in the blood, under the gaze of your mother.”

“Great!” Harry grumbled. “My mom is dead and I’m going to have to die or be seriously hurt to do this crap. My life is great!”

He was unaware that he had almost screamed those words and when he realized it he moaned as he closed his eyes.

“Piss off!”

He hadn’t asked anyone for anything and had, once again, proof that luck was not on his side. Or that if she was, bad luck replaced her quickly enough and was virulent. Sometimes he wondered what he had done to fate to deserve such punishment. He hadn’t done anything until he was born, which might have been his wrong.

“It is a heavy task which weighs on your shoulders and nobody, not even me, will blame you for wanting to continue your life far from it all.”

“Damn, start again!” Harry got on his nerves. “If I leave, I will have on my conscience the loss of your country! Maybe there will be deaths and that, if I find out in the newspapers, I will never be able to live with it again!”

Because that was his biggest flaw. He had an honour and was not done thinking of his safety. The proof, with McNair, he hadn’t fled like any sane individual would, he had stayed and waited for him, stupidly ready to accept the sentence. He told himself that if he had committed a murder, with his stupid honour, he would have been doomed to wait for the police and surrender.

“Especially since I bet and I never go back to my word.”

0o0

Hogwarts.

The plane was flying over the land and Harry could see through the window a city and a palace overlooking it. Large, majestic, it looked a little like the fortified castles of the Middle Ages. The centuries and successive owners had been able to make it lose this purely defensive aspect to give it more charm.

“We are going to land in a few minutes,” Snape told him. “Once at the palace, I will show you your apartments and then give you a little visit. You will have servants at your service. Regarding our – contract, I will send you a copy as soon as it is ready.”

“And concerning the – prophecy part, we forget?”

“During this month, yes. Then if you're planning on staying – we can focus on that. Does this suit you?”

Harry nodded. He knew, however, that the prophecy was going to keep spinning in his mind.

“It is obvious that it is out of the question to continue your activity, whether outside the palace or inside. Other than that, you are free to do whatever you want, as long as it doesn't harm the image of Hogwarts. So no orgies, no prostitution–”

“Nothing related to sex, it’s okay, I got it. What if I want to get laid, do I have the right?”

After all, he was just a man with needs and as such he had to meet them. It was normal, Snape had to understand.

“You are free to do what you want. If, however, after the one-month deadline, you decide to stay, it goes without saying that these… escapades will be prohibited.”

“Why?”

It made no sense to allow him to do whatever he wanted and then forbid him to do. It was even completely insane.

“Because you will be my fiancé and I do not tolerate adultery.”

“What?”

The wedding part was coming too quickly for his liking. He had thought it would take a lot longer. A year or two, not a month.

“You are supposed to sit next to me. The only way to do this is to make you my husband. The engagement box seems good to me. No? I thought it was clear when I came to you and offered you this contract.”

“Yeah but…”

He did not understand the pleasure that people of this caste got from marrying without love. Snape was not gay, so the carnal side was to be banished since it seemed obvious that he would derive no pleasure from the act with a man. Harry could do whatever he had to do and let a woman marry the prince.

“The prophecy is clear, the Founders’ Child must be by my side. If it is another person, Hogwarts will be destroyed.”

“You do all this for your country, eh?”

“Yes.”

“You’re even more stupid than me. You’re going to get a poor guy who fucks other people for money and you want to put a crown on his head just because he can save Hogwarts. You are ready to marry without the slightest love. Yeah, you’re really stupid. Or twisted, as desired.”

Snape only raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

A few minutes later, the plane touched down on the runway at Hogwarts Airport. Harry had been most surprised to realize that a small town like this had its trail. He remembered before stupidly asking the question that it was a nation and therefore that it was normal to be able to come and go by air.

A car was waiting for them and a driver bowed the door open for them.

“Your Highness,” he said. “Sir.”

The drive to the palace was relatively long for Harry, who had already spent a good part of his afternoon in a car and an hour in a plane. The ten-minute bumpy road seemed to take a lot longer. He took the opportunity to look at the landscape.

One thing was certain, Hogwarts was a pretty nation. Harry liked the stone houses, the thatched roofs. Small cottages. The only downside was the floral decoration. There was nothing. The grass of the few meadows they had seen was non-existent. They looked like abandoned fields.

“It’s a little dead, no vegetation. You decorate?”

A sardonic chuckle answered him, a sign that his question was at best uninteresting, at worst stupid.

“I find it surprising that you noticed anything.”

“Maybe it’s bigger than the village I used to live in, but there it was more alive than that. And yet, believe me, it didn’t pay off. People preferred to take care of their gardens and loot the plants that city workers put, when they put them, rather than take care of the flowers of the city.”

More than once he had seen his aunt dig up flower bulbs to bring them back to her garden. She wasn't the only one. His neighbours did the same.

“There were, two months ago. Everywhere. But everything died overnight. With each full moon, Hogwarts deteriorates a bit more. I have had testimonies that their house is falling apart. Like the palace.”

In short, Harry was going to land in a trash can. At least that was what he thought before the palace suddenly appeared before them. Despite himself, the young man whistled.

“Well fuck,” he could just say.

“Could you, for my ears, have the decency to stop saying that word? Please.”

“What?” Harry wondered.

He didn't see the harm in expressing his surprise.

“You speak in a vulgar manner. You proved to me that you have more than ten vocabulary words and that you are intelligent then–”

“How do you want me to talk?” Harry moaned as the driver opened the door for them. “Like people who have a broom up the arse?”

He ignored the driver’s outraged gaze.

“That I talk like you do?”

“Like – me,” Snape repeated. “Do I have a broom up my arse as you say so well and so poetically?”

“Well… you do a lot in your style when you speak. You gotta see what you said to the other ars– sodding McNair.”

“Nice catching up, except that I would have preferred another term even less colourful than sodding.”

“Jester?”

“Better.”

“Yeah but that sounds worse than arsehole or son of a bitch or–”

“I get it,” Snape replied, stepping away from him.

Harry sneered, proud of himself. He had developed his panoply of insults by dating happy girls, and they had a flowery language. The young man hastened to catch up with the prince framed by his two bodyguards.

“It’s nice here,” he said to make conversation. “Really big but nice. They had money your ancestors and balls to build it.”

Once inside, Harry hissed again. The noise echoed in the great hall.

“Damn, that’s great! It must be boring to maintain.”

“Do you realise what you are saying?”

“Huh?”

A servant in a hurry appeared in the meantime and retrieved the coats and the bag of the new arrivals before disappearing.

“Hey, my bag, dirty–” Harry started before being interrupted by Snape.

“He is going to put it in your room. You have no fear about it. Vincent, Gregory, I won’t need you anymore.”

The two bodyguards bowed and disappeared around the corner of a corridor.

“Where are they going?”

“Go about their jobs.”

“And what does a bodyguard do when it’s not in the service of the Highness?”

“You will ask them yourself.”

This idea was strongly rejected. Harry had no intention of going to the two men to ask them what they were planning on their day. With the prince, he knew he was in relative safety, alone with them, it was like giving a rare steak to a dog, he would no longer be of this world. All the more did not appear very sympathetic.

“Or not,” Potter assured.

“Then come with me. I’ll show you to your room and introduce you to your servants.”

They climbed a white stone staircase and came to a floor covered with a blue carpet on authentic parquet. Harry had always dreamed of living in a house with hardwood floors. It was the height of chic according to him. The long corridor, lit by windows overlooking the gardens, which looked like an earthen desert, was a portrait gallery. Probably all the owners of Hogwarts.

“We’re in the guest wing. On the wall are the portraits of the illustrious inhabitants of certain rooms. They stayed there for many months, being almost considered to be family. Your apartments are here.”

He stopped in front of a door between the portrait of a surly-looking lady and a man with a presence worthy of a king. Eugenia and Stephan. No name or dates.

When Snape pushed open the door, Harry gasped in amazement.

It was not a simple room, it was a real suite worthy of a palace. He had two rooms just for him, including a small living room, all in shades of white and red. He who adored this colour, he was delighted with what he had in front of his eyes. The double bed seemed most comfortable and he was dying to jump on it like a kid.

Two servants stood in a corner and bowed when they saw them arrive.

“Your Highness,” they said in a single voice.

“Ladies, this is our guest, Mr. Potter. Mr Potter, this is Francesca and Vicky.”

Each bowed at the mention of her first name. Harry told himself it was going to take a little while not to make a mistake. He didn’t have that memory and often had a tendency to forget. However, the two girls did not look alike. They were as white as the other but Vicky had brown hair and Francesca was blond as wheat. They wore the maid’s outfit, a grey dress, a white apron and headdress. Nothing to do with the very short disguise he had to wear once to satisfy the basic fantasies of one of his clients.

“I will let you settle in and starting tomorrow… I think it will be necessary to have your wardrobe redone,” Snape said, scrutinizing him from head to toe.

Harry glanced around the room, eager to find out what was behind one of the doors he saw closed on either side of the bed. He didn't wait for the prince to leave before rushing to open the panel closest to the window.

“God damn it, fucking bitch!” he bellowed, pointing to the immaculate spa room.

Behind his back, he didn’t see Severus shaking his head in annoyance.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello beautiful readers,
> 
> Kindly reminder  
> I do not own the Harry Potter Universe nor its characters. They belong to J. K. Rowling, all rights belong to her. This work is a translation of the fanfiction "SAS, Son Altesse Sérénissime" written and posted by Nanola Meylhann on fanfiction.net. I only own the translation.
> 
> On this joyful note, I hope you enjoy this new chapter.

Despite the comfort of his bed and bedroom, Harry hadn’t managed to find sleep that night. He hadn’t stopped tuning and turning, his gaze riveted on the heavy red velvet curtains that hid the windows and park on which the room overlooked.

The young man couldn’t explain this sudden impossibility to sleep. With his one-night lovers, he just had to close his eyes to reach the land of dreams. He admitted in this example, with his clients, he drifted to unconsciousness once the job done, his part paid and as a rule, he didn’t stay after being paid. More for security that for real desire. Harry had no desire to see his hard-earned pay disappear because he closed his eyes more than a few minutes.

Admittedly, he was not a heavy sleeper, spending part of his nights walking on the sidewalk and the other sleeping very lightly, waking up three or four times because he was not reassured by his surroundings, but he had no difficulty falling asleep.

If Harry was honest with himself , he would had found an explanation. It was not his bed, nor his bedroom and all his habits taken for almost seven years had been swept away in one evening. Of course he wasn’t able to sleep.

The young man stared at the ceiling and the mouldings he couldn’t see because of the darkness of the room, darkness bestowed by the crimson drapes. He comfortably stalled under the heavy blanket and closed his eyes, knowing that nothing could make him sleep while the day had risen.

According to his cell phone, it was nine o’clock. There was no sound on the other side of the door. As if the house – if that term could be used to designate the castle – was deserted, that no one passed in front of his room.

At nine thirty and with a famished stomach, Harry pushed back the blankets and got up. At the end of his bed was thick and warm bed robes. Stuffed slippers were waiting on the rug, to his size. Without asking questions, he slipped on the bed robes and slippers before crossing the room and opening the door.

The light of the corridor blinded him. He waited a few seconds before leaving his lair and stopped in the middle of the corridor. No one. To his dismay, he realised that he couldn’t remember the direction to take. The night before, he had gone upstairs and gone to bed rather early. He hadn’t taken time to visit the House. As a result, he was completely lost.

One step after another, Harry went up the corridor in the wrong direction, went down the stairs covered with a red carpet whereas the night before, it had been blue, and disembarked in a paved hall.

“What’s this pad?! Not able to make bloody stairs!” he raged.

The houses of his most wealthy clients weren’t that big and if the perspective of living here satisficed him, him getting lost was far from pleasing him.

He entered a corridor and turned back when arrived in a dead end.

“They could put up signposts for the guests. I bet there must be some croaked ones somewhere. Rotting corpses.”

“Here is an idea,” a male voice taunted behind his back, causing him to turn around sharply.

He faced a man who must have been three times his age. An old man who still had many good years ahead of him despite the weight of the years and his face wrinkled like a parchment crumpled by time. Harry had never had a client this old. The older must have been in his sixties and the experience had not been unpleasant.

“You must be Mr. Potter. My name is Albus Dumbledore, counsellor of His Serene Highness Prince Severus.”

“Yeah. It’s great to meet someone who knows the house.”

Dumbledore blinked before smiling. Harry thought he had beautiful blue eyes. In his youth, he must have had his moment of glory with young girls.

An uncomfortable silence settled between the two men.

“There’s somethin’ to tuck in here? I’m starving,” Harry said while his gaze went on the walls and decorations.

Here and there were small pedestal tables along the corridor on which stood bouquets of brightly coloured flowers. Faintly remembering the park and the surrounding area devoid of any vegetation, Harry suspected the flowers to be plastic.

From the cream-coloured walls hung landscapes, hunting scenes… magnificent paintings even for a neophyte like Harry.

“Yes, of course,” the old counsellor answered. “If you would like to follow me.”

They strolled through the gallery, certain large bay windows overlooking the park. Harry never tired of looking through the windows, not really paying attention to the route taken. His guide was not very talkative and not once did Potter bother to disturb someone or his unconventional attire. It was barely if he realised he was in his pyjamas and Dumbledore was in a suit and tie. To tell the truth, he hadn’t had much of a choice to stay that way, his clothes had been taken away by a zealous servant and she had not returned them to him.

“There you are,” suddenly said the old man stopping before a closed heavy door. “The dining room.”

“Ah. Thanks,” was all Harry could say.

He was uncomfortable when his interlocutor bowed before him. Never before had anyone had such a behaviour towards him. In order not to embarrass himself, Harry hurriedly opened the door and came across a deserted dining room whose table was crumbling under the dishes.

For the first time since arriving, he didn’t know what to do. Should he sit down and eat or wait for someone to come? He was not at home here. He was only a guest for a month.

“Mr. Potter?” called a female voice he recognised.

It was Vicky, one of his two servants. She stood next to him when Francesca was in a corner and looked at him our of the corner of her eye.

The young woman bowed and showed a chair and the table, inviting him to eat plenty and content his growling stomach.

Never has breakfast been so well received and quickly devoured. Harry had eaten the day before though. Despite this, he felt as hungry as after several days of forced dieting. However, he had to stop quickly, his stomach crying out that he was full.

He pushed his plate away and leaned back against the back of his chair, sated. There, he would not have been against taking a nap. However Francesca decided otherwise.

“Mr. Potter, His Highness Prince Severus charged us to lead you to him as soon as you finish eating. You have a meeting with the tailor.

“Eh?”

“The tailor, Mr. Potter,” Vicky repeated.

“Then it wasn’t bullshit?” practically choked Harry as he remembered what Snape had told him.

He was going to see a tailor. They were going to make clothes for him. No need to go to the local thrift store and haggle over a ridiculous price for pants or a T-shirt or even a pair of sneakers.

“God dammit, I’m gonna–”

The world seemed to turn as Harry was still seated. If he had been standing he would most certainly have fallen. All these riches which suddenly fell into his hands made him shiver. He who had nothing had the feeling of having entered another dimension.

“Mr. Potter?” Vicky worried seeing him so feeble. “Go fetch the Prince,” she whispered to her colleague who rushed out of the room. “Mr. Potter, is everything alright?”

Harry was shaking in all his limbs. Everything was fine without being fine at the same time. It was ironic as a paradox and very stupid. Yet that was how he felt as a sweet warmth crept through him and an urge to cry took over him.

He was offered things he had never dreamed of. All his childhood and a small part of his adolescence, he had lived like a parasite, having to have clothes only thanks to the kindness of soul of his aunt who gave him what his cousin whale no longer put on. He had lived with clothes that were too big, with holes, and dirty. Nothing had ever been his. Whenever he pretended to be interested in something, Dudley demanded it and showed it to him, proudly showing it off and making him understand that he would have nothing.

In the street Harry had never been able to get anything new. Even Peter hadn’t given him anything, preferring to have him naked or undressed. The room and the meal, he had been able to manage. But the tailor was stupidly beyond his strength.

“Mr. Potter,” said Snape’s almost reassuring voice.

Harry turned to him and could have thrown himself at his neck, had he been this kind of person.

“What is happening? Francesca almost urged me to come as quickly as possible. I was thinking of seeing a corpse or a dying, but you look perfectly healthy. So what have I got from this trip while the tailor awaits your arrival? Ladies, thank you, you can go.”

The two servants bowed and slipped away quickly, leaving the masters between them.

“So?”

“A tailor?” croaked Harry.

“I thought that was clear though. You decently cannot walk Hogwarts in your rags while living in the castle. Would that cause you a concern?”

Harry didn’t respond. He turned to his plate and stole in the dish a piece of bacon he chewed without conviction.

“Mr. Potter, what on earth is the problem?”

“Why d’you do that? I mean, have you ever had clothes cut for one of your conquests?”

“They didn’t need for it. Their fashion style was quite suitable. You, on the other hand…”

A shudder of disgust coursing through Snape did not escape Harry. Was it his fault he couldn’t find anything? No one had had the decency or the kindness to teach him how to dress either. It was the looks of others that convinced him that he was not right. Until he lived in the street, there no one had dared to say anything.

“Why a tailor? If you give me money, I can go in a shop and buy clothes! No?”

“Let's say that your taste in clothing is very questionable and that I want to have a say.”

Potter had a small smile. Now he understood why the tailor. Snape just betray himself.

“In fact, you want to watch.”

Snape rolled his eyes and shook his head, annoyed.

“If it makes you happy to think of such a thing. I wish my… fiancé–” the term pulled a grimace from him “–was dressed in good taste and I know that the shops at Hogwarts, however fancy they are, don’t offer what I’m looking for. Now are you going to finish that piece of bacon and keep eating, or we can go?”

The chewed end found itself on the plate, barely cracked. Harry wiped his hands on the towel and stood up to follow the prince down the halls of Hogwarts. The young man was taken aback by the size of the house and wondered if one day he could walk around without getting lost.

His heart sank when he remembered that he might never live here. Once Hogwarts was back to normal, Harry would undoubtedly be kicked out of here and would have to get back to his old life, a miserable life to be sold for a few tickets.

They arrived after what seemed to the young man hours of walking, in front of a double door which opened onto a large living room in red tones. A man stood in the middle of the room and the furniture was already covered with a multitude of clothes. As if a store had been robbed and its contents were found there.

“Mr. Malkin, sorry to have kept you waiting. Here is the client I told you about. Mr. Potter, this is Mr. Malkin, Hogwarts tailor.”

Mr. Malkin was short and thin. Despite his grey sideburns, he looked quite young and his eyes twinkled with mischief. Harry felt like seeing the old man, Dumbledore, whose gaze shone just as brightly.

“How do you do?” he said, approaching with great strides.

Ernest Malkin didn’t give him time to answer his greeting and started to turn around him, mumbling under the beard he didn’t have. Harry could feel hands brushing his robes behind his back, arms and hips. He would have liked to reply, to push back those wandering hands, but a glance from the prince was enough to silence him.

“Do you know what your measurements are?”

“Eh?”

“Measurements, Mr. Potter. The circumferences of chest, neck, hip, waist, and leg height.”

“That’s a chick’s thing,” Harry retorted, startled by the question.

No one had ever asked him such a question and he himself had never been interested in it. If he fit into a garment and the price wasn’t too expensive, he took, the rest didn’t matter.

“You have to know this if we want to make you outfits adapted to your morphology. What size do you dress in? S, XS, M, L?”

“I don’t know.”

He heard not one but two desperate sighs.

The session was an ordeal, for Harry as well as for the tailor. The young man had been stripped naked, in the true sense of the term since he had nothing under his pyjamas, lacking for fear of sending Malkin to the Emergency Room. He was forced to put on an undergarment, but the old man had had a hard time recovering from this sight that no one had prepared him for.

Then Harry must have put on a dozen pants that were way too tight for him but he hadn’t had his say, countless shirts, polo shirts and t-shirts, not to mention sweaters, jackets and the like… The style of the underwear had been approached through a catalogue. Shoes had also been ordered, as were socks. Three things that weren’t tailor-made but the cost of which had stunned Harry. He even asked if diamonds or gold had been sewn on it, the only thing that explained these numbers bordering on indecency.

They only finished their fittings for lunch, around one in the afternoon. Malkin lent, at the prince’s request, an outfit for Potter while the order would arrive the next day or two.

Harry had remained dubious about this morning. In reality, he hadn’t quite understood what they had just done or why the outfits tried and adopted were not given or sold to him. That said, he preferred to keep his questions to himself, without a doubt saving her from being taunted.

Snape led him into the dining room and, for once, the route seemed familiar. Entering the room, Harry felt his hunger come galloping and was still surprised. Usually he could go a day without swallowing anything. And there, as soon as he smelled the sweet scent of food, his belly rumbled. It was to understand nothing.

Without waiting for anyone’s agreement, Harry sat down at the table and ate the contents of his plate under the surprised gaze of Snape and the servants present.

The meal passed in silence and in a heavy atmosphere. Harry finished before the prince really started and, because he was not at home and the vague instructions about politeness repeated over and over by his aunt came back to him, he waited patiently for his host to finish his lunch as well, which seemed to go on for hours.

He could almost tell that Snape didn’t want him here. He felt it. It was like a sixth sense. He had always felt the same when he lived with the Dursleys and they refused to see him with them, in the same room. For thirteen years Harry had therefore done everything to make himself invisible.

When Severus was finally done, he stood up, imitated by Harry. Once out of the room, the prince turned to him and Potter sensed that maybe what he was going to say was not going to please him.

“I had promised a visit but I happen to have a lot of work and that I have no time for you.”

Harry nodded, realising that he was going to be on his own. What had he expected? That we take care of him? It was silly but a small part of him had believed it at least a little, for a short while. Having said that, it was hardly surprising that His Highness admitted to having a job.

“So I’ll let you enjoy your afternoon as you wish. However, please remember what we talked about yesterday. Nothing that does not compromise the Crown! No passes, orgies, sex for money or anything else!”

“Yes, yes!” Harry growled.

He wasn’t stupid, Snape had made the forbidden list the night before and Potter wasn’t stupid enough to brave them on the first day.

He turned away, leaving the prince to go about his activities due to his rank while he, poor wretch, went to look after himself. Harry knew how to manage. He had been taking care of himself for six or seven years and so far he could say he had done well.

Deep in thought, Harry didn’t feel Snape's suspicious gaze on his back, nor did he see him pull a phone out of his pocket. He let his footsteps guide him through the palace and found himself unsure how in front of a door leading outside. He hesitated for a moment, judging his outfit in no way suitable for a jaunt in the park or the city. He wore tight pants, a crisp shirt, a thick sweater and slippers.

Resigned, he turned back and tried to find his room. After an hour of wandering through this too large house, he finally reached the foot of the staircase that he thought was the one that gave access to the guest rooms. A sigh of relief crossed his lips as he recognised the blue carpet. Moments later he was in the room he had been given for the month.

Like the day before, he rummaged in the cupboards, which were still empty, except for one which contained his meagre possessions. He found his jeans with holes in the back of the thigh, his hoodie with threadbare sleeves, his two once-white T-shirts, a thick sweater, the only one in his possession, and his old sneakers that had managed to hold several months despite their state of disrepair more than advanced. His backpack was there, on the back, on the floor of the cupboard.

Feverishly because taken with a terrible doubt, Harry searched the pockets of all his clothes without finding the photo of his parents. His heart began to race in his chest as an icy sweat slowly trickled down his back.

Nothing in his bag or in his clothes.

And then relief took hold of his being when he saw on his bedside table the little piece of paper folded and unfolded too many times. He almost threw himself on it and hugged it to his heart before stretching out on his bed with the drawn sheets smelling of laundry.

Lying on his side, knees tucked into his chest, Harry raised the photograph to eye level and stared eagerly even though he knew the features by heart of his parents’ smiling faces.

Lily Potter was resplendent in her green coat and beret. Her long red hair was blown by the wind that must have been blowing that day. She was dancing with her husband James who was looking at her lovingly.

A lump formed in Harry’s throat as tears rolled down his cheeks. He would not have the chance to love another person or to be loved by him. Until the day before, he had had the slightest hope of being seen by a woman or a man who would fall in love with him, enough to make him stop his job. Now he was going to stop for a month what he had been doing for years but would never be loved by Snape. Because the latter did this out of obligation. To save Hogwarts, his principality and not for love.

Harry sniffled and curled up on his bed, terribly unhappy.

0o0

“So?” Severus asked Vincent.

Seated at his desk, the Prince nervously patted the surface while watching his bodyguard, slightly worried about the report he was to give him after an afternoon of following Potter on his travels.

Yes, Severus had no confidence in this man he was harbouring. Harry Potter worked in the world of sex, rubbed shoulders with illegality. His criminal record was clean but that didn’t mean anything. He just hadn’t been caught if he had had anything to be ashamed of.

“He hasn’t left his room. His servants have tried to enter but he sends them away each time.”

“At least he didn’t leave the palace as I feared.”

“No, Your Highness. He hasn’t moved.”

“This is a good thing. Tell his servants to let him know when dinner is served.”

“Yes Your Highness,” Vincent replied, bowing before leaving the office, leaving his prince.

Severus stared blankly at the important document he needed to sign. He was greatly relieved that Potter hadn’t left his room. At least he would not have to fear today the consequences of his actions. He was afraid that the kid would act like in London, start teasing the men in the street and sleeping with them for a few coins or bills. He was ashamed to think that way, yet he couldn’t think of himself.

He forced himself to put his guest aside so that he could concentrate on the document for the half hour left before lunch. Usually the paperwork was no problem for him. Except today. He couldn't get Potter out of his mind.

After ten minutes, Severus threw back the paper and stood up then left his office to go back to his quarters and slash his face.

He looked at himself in the mirror over the sink, his face still dripping with the water he had just sprinkled on it. His knuckles tightened around the edges of the enamel bowl.

This story did not please him. Having to rely on a man like Potter, a lawless prostitute, was difficult. At that moment, he missed Pansy like never before. The young woman hadn’t given any news since the last time.

And to think that he had to exchange his love for this woman for the indispensable presence of a man who had no modesty and had experience in matters of sex much more important than the rest. A man with no education. A man he should absolutely marry.

His future was ruined because of a simple prophecy. A stellar story that he would hardly have believed if he had been sane.

Severus took a towel and wiped his forehead and then his cheeks.

Without this stupid prophecy, he would be tweaking the details of the wedding, not cursing Trelawney.

Knocks on his door made him look up.

“Yes!”

The sound of a door opening and heels treading on the thick carpet of the bedroom before joining him here in his bathroom. It was Mary, one of his servants. She bowed once on the threshold of the door.

“Your Highness, dinner is served.”

“Thank you. Has Mr. Potter been informed?”

To tell the truth, the boy’s presence at his table did not please him. He would have liked to eat alone. This morning had been perfect, he who had dreaded Potter's company at his table, he hadn’t even seen a shadow. At lunch he had been tense. The meal had gone well. The young man hadn’t seemed to wait for someone to make the conversation, however Severus would have appreciated if he didn’t have to watch him finish his plate. Tonight he wanted no one. However, telling his guest he didn't want it without offending him was quite a story.

Severus could not understand this outright rejection.

“Yes Your Highness. He doesn’t want to eat.”

That solved his problems. Nevertheless, Severus decided not to be relieved as a question was raised.

“Did he say why?”

“No, Your Highness. He just said he wasn’t coming.”

“Thanks Mary.”

For the next week, Potter didn’t show up anywhere. According to Vincent and Gregory he was cloistered in his room. Apparently he had asked to eat in his apartments. So he only opened his door to meals.

“Your Highness?” said Gregory, entering the princely office.

“What is going on?” Severus wanted to know as he stopped reading the file on building a shopping centre.

“Mr. Potter left his room. Vincent is following him.”

This time Severus almost threw the thick booklet on his desk, intrigued by the sudden turn of events.

Snape had managed to forget Potter for the last few days. He had only remembered her presence when Goyle mentioned her name.

“For how long?”

“One hour. Little more. He’s in the park.”

“If he’s going to town, let me know right away.”

0o0

The park was, in Harry’s opinion, superb. At the very least, it should have been if all the flowers, shrubs, and bushes hadn’t been destroyed by some dark force.

The young man bundled up in his brand-new coat, hood over his head, woollen scarf over his nose, strolled down the perfectly raked alleys. The once fat and well-cut grass was yellowed or even non-existent in places. It was a shame.

Harry took a deep breath of the cold air and closed his eyes. What he had missed in London was nature. Even if he had never loved his family, they had the merit of having a small garden in which he had spent long hours. He had always taken care of the patch of greenery with great application. His aunt had found only one quality in him, and that was that he had a green thumb. So she let him take care of the maintenance of the rosebushes, the flower beds and beautify the place.

Vegetation was not Harry’s passion, however he enjoyed taking care of it.

“Bloody hell!” he moaned as his new booted foot sank into a puddle. “Piss off! I should have put on my old pumps, I wouldn’t have screwed up those five thousand shoes! I would have looked like a moron but… fuck!”

He tried to drip off his shoe by shaking his foot and started walking again trying to avoid the puddles.

“I could like myself here.”

It was a fact: quality meals, private apartments, clothes, car, bodyguards… the dream life for anyone. If one day he had been told he would be in a castle to live like a prince, he would have laughed in her face. Today, he had obtained it his life in a castle and without really doing anything.

Harry wasn’t fooled at all. He knew perfectly well that this month was a kind of vacation month and that if he agreed to continue, he was going to have to learn the basics of politics, finance and other subjects as boring as each other. After all, if he were to be crowned prince consort, he was going to have to be fit to support his husband.

That word alone made Harry laugh. Husband. He was just twenty-one years old and already he saw himself with the ring on his finger, ruling a Principality. The mental image of him with the crown on his head and the ermine mantle, like in his old history books, was laughable.

Still he had no choice, he was going to have to wear the crown, because if he didn’t sit alongside the prince in a few months, Hogwarts would once again be a barren land on which nothing would grow.

“On the one hand, to live like a prince and take it easy all year round–” he raised a hand, palm up to the sky “–and on the other, to have to act like a prince and not know the love–” he held up the other hand. “–Hard dilemma. Yeah boy, you’re not in trouble. Anyway, tell yourself that when Hogwarts is better, you will leave and everything will be back to how it was before.”

This time, more laughter, only a deep dejection. Going back to begging, living on the streets, tempting customers for a few Pounds, donating his body… Harry wasn’t sure he could do it again. Until then he had done this job out of spite, to provide for himself and because he had no other choice.

Right in the middle of the aisle, he crouched down and looked at himself in a puddle. As always, his reflection horrified him and there, distorted by the slight eddies on the surface from the blowing wind, he looked like a monster.

In anger, Harry slapped the puddle, scratching his fingers on the stones in passing and stood up before striding away.

“God dammit!” Harry cursed as a tear began to fall down his cheek. “You’re not a fag, Potter, so stop whining like a kid. I’m fucking talking to myself. I’m nuts.”

He sneered, laughing at himself. His feet continued to carry him further before stopping right at the edge of the grass. A gust of wind stronger than the others and a few drops on his face, though protected by the hood, convinced him that going home was a good idea.

Turning around, he noticed the presence of a man in black near a window. The latter disappeared behind a large stone basin.

“Holy shit,” he hissed. “Nice trust.”

He strode over to the stone basin but found no one hiding behind it. The spy must have fled as Harry joined him as quickly as possible. He wanted to talk to the prince, to understand why he was being watched. The small concern was that Snape was nowhere to be found, well hidden somewhere in this big house.

Harry stood in the embrasure of a window, looked around without seeing anyone. But he could now feel that he was being watched.

“Where’s the prince?” he growled into the void. “I know there is someone! But does he have the balls to–”

A young girl who must have been his age appeared at the corner of a corridor and stared at him, amazed to see him here, a bundle of laundry in his arms.

“I–”

“Where’s the prince?!”

“His Highness is in his office but He doesn’t wish to–”

“I don’t care He don’t want to be bothered! Where’s his office?!”

He was going to have to think about making this visit if he didn’t want to get lost continually. A week and he hadn’t left his room but that was going to have to change. Harry was tired of having to depend on others to get from one place to another.

“Mr. Potter,” Goyle interjected, stepping into the hall in turn.

In Harry’s opinion, he had been there for a long time. It wasn’t by chance that he arrived just a few minutes after Potter had started bawling and demanding to see the prince. So he must have been the spy.

“Ah here you are. Instead of watching me, can you take me to see the Highness or I have to have fun searching every room in this damn shack to find him? Because I can also do it and without problems!”

“Making a scandal won’t help, Mr. Potter. I’ll take you there.”

“Good, because he and I are talking.”

Goyle made her follow him and waved the maid away. They walked what appeared to be a hundred yards and entered a room. Another living room. Harry had the mental thought to ask how many salons this castle had. It was the third or fourth he had visited since arriving. This one was different. It seemed inhabited. Everything was in order though, but Harry was sure he was serving more than the others.

The bodyguard knocked on a door at the back then entered. Harry stayed back, preferring to wait for an invitation. He could have followed the man and not waited until he was introduced to freak out, except he knew full well that Snape would take advantage of this attitude to taunt him and not listen to him.

His Highness finally appeared, quite annoyed it seemed, judging by her pinched expression and her frowns. Goyle silently slipped away to give them some privacy, for which Harry was grateful.

“You wanted to see me?”

“Yeah. Can you explain why you’re spying on me?”

“I beg your pardon?” Snape almost wondered as he settled himself into the comfortable looking sofa.

Harry preferred to stay standing by the door, arms crossed over his chest. The anger he had felt on discovering the rose pot intensified when he realised that the prince was feigning innocence.

“Don’t be the one who doesn’t get what I’m talking about. It looks very bad on you.”

“I’m not spying on anyone.”

“Of course. That’s why I saw one of your bodyguards pull out when he realised he was toast. That when I yelled, he mysteriously appeared! So stop messing around with me! I don’t like that ! If you want me to be watched, that’s your problem, but let me know! I’m not a thief or anything.”

“You sell your body for money!”

Harry wanted to spit in his face or put his fist in his face, furious that his condition as a prostitute was being thrown back at him as if that could justify the behaviour he found filthy.

“That’s what you blame on me? That I fuck for money? Are you afraid I’m not going to obey your fucking rule? Who do you take me for? A moron? I’m not stupid, I know perfectly well that if I stay more than a month in this house, I will be your fiancé. I also know that the day when I will be presented to your people, if I’ve played the whore, it will turn against you but also against me and there, goodbye your credibility as a prince. Did you think I didn’t get it and that as soon as you turned your back, I would do what I was doing in London? Do you think it’s fun to spread my legs? To put up with pigs who fuck me? Do you think life is fun and that I won’t give everything I have to get another job? But if I have this one, it’s not because I wanted it, it’s because I had no choice!”

His snarling tirade had the merit of seeing Snape turn white and it was a nice reward.

“You said you let me do whatever I wanted as long as I didn’t offer my arse for bills. I’m here because I have to save your arse. I, Hogwarts, I don’t give a fuck. It’s not home and I doubt it will ever be!”

These words cost him horribly. But it was the truth, he knew it.

“So your gorillas, you kindly tell them to leave me alone. Or you tell me frankly, so they are in my field of vision. It will piss me off but I won’t feel like I’m being betrayed! And before I forget, I am not a thief nor a liar! Let it be said. You don’t know me and you allow yourself to judge me just because I’m having sex for cash. Except I wasn’t born with a golden spoon in my mouth. I didn’t have my parents to help me when I was in trouble. They died when I was a baby! You don’t know what it’s like to grow up in a family that doesn’t give a damn about you and only remembers your existence when there are chores to do. It seems I have to thank them for sending me to school.”

He forced himself into silence, lambasting himself. The words were coming out on their own when he wanted to keep it to himself, not to be so vulnerable. He was pouring out the rage accumulated for twenty years without anything being able to hold it back. He wanted to scream and cry and hit anything near him but forced himself not to move. The boiled wool of his coat paid the price for his anger.

“You,” he went on after taking two deep breaths meant to calm him a little, “you are a prince. You were lucky. So it’s true that now, it’s gone a bit because you get… well me and it’s frankly no luck. But believe me, in my fucking life it could be worse. Now, if that can reassure you, I can write you a certificate or whatever, which assures that I will not go solicit in the streets of Hogwarts.”

“It won't be necessary,” Snape replied softly. “You must already sign a contract in which this close is stipulated.”

“Good! I almost forgot about it. Well so much the better. You can send it to me. I’ll sign it for you right away. With that, Highness–” he mimed a grotesque curtsy “–I’ll let you work!”

“I’ll bring it to dinner.”

“I eat in my room. Don’t want to have to put up with people’s disgust.”

He left Snape on that sentence and left, slamming the door, unsurprisingly finding Goyle nearby. Harry didn’t give him a look, his mind focused on the direction to his room. He was suddenly tired and wanted to curl up in his bed. His hands tucked into his coat pockets were shaking, gripping the fabric convulsively. Her heart was pounding and her throat was dry. It was the first time that he had let himself be so angry in front of others.

0o0

Gregory waited until his prince’s guest was out of sight before rushing into the living room. He found His Highness deep in thought, which relieved him, especially after what he had heard through the door. Potter’s voice could be loud and pitched high when he was upset. For a moment, the bodyguard had thought his boss was going to be attacked and he had hesitated for a long time between intervening or staying in his place in the hallway. Hearing no moans or cries of alarm, he had preferred to opt for the second solution.

“Your Highness?” he risked.

Severus fixed his dark gaze on him. A gaze that had the power to petrify people on the spot when the prince was angry. There he was thoughtful.

“Is Mr. Potter gone?”

“Yes, Your Highness. He was making his way to his room. Should I…”

He preferred not to continue his sentence, not to ask if he should have this man watched who was not telling him anything worthwhile. His presence made him uncomfortable. There was something about him that Gregory didn't like and as soon as he saw it his hands were sweaty. As if Potter was a danger.

“Not at all. I would prefer to avoid another discussion like this. I have the feeling that I misjudged this boy, Gregory. And I don't like it. What do we know about him?”

Goyle shrugged. He knew very little. His prince had preferred not to tell them anything. When they went to get him, Severus had just assured him that he was going to help Hogwarts. He had learnt other things in the jet that had brought them back and nothing he had heard had pleased him.

“Yes, not much you’re right. Simply because Harry Potter wanted to disappear to become Jack Daniel’s. Apparently his foster family didn’t like him and vice versa. In London, he was selling his body because he couldn’t afford it any other way.”

“He always had the choice not to.”

“It is true. However, he was fourteen when he fled and I doubt he had a penny in his pocket. By living in the street, no one wanted him because he was too young or because he did not speak to the right people. As a result he jumped at the opportunity to give what was left of him for a few tickets. That's what I understand from what he told me.”

Gregory shivered, not from cold. What Snape was implying did not please him and seeing it, he was not the only one. Potter must have been in his twenties. If he had been on the streets for almost six years, at what age had he started selling himself? The answer, even if he ignored it, gave him a cold sweat.

“It is a – morbid life he’s lived, isn’t it?” asserted more than he asked Gregory.

“Yes. Morbid, that’s the word. And I, like an idiot, I think he will resume his activity behind my back. Seeing him, I never thought he could have done this out of spite. Especially since he is the heir of a large fortune and he knows nothing about it. It’s sad. I don’t know what to do or how to deal with it. His speaking makes me want to scream but he gives the impression of having received a certain education. His manners are not deplorable and he– knows where he belongs. He– No it’s a fact, I don’t know how to act. He will become, if he accepts, my husband and– I am– uncomfortable. His presence bothers me.”

Goyle nodded, almost relieved to find that he wasn't the only one.

“But his absence worries me.”

But he didn't feel that way. The bodyguard admitted inwardly that he would be willing to spend his time spying on Potter just to allay the fear that plagued him as soon as the young man was around.

“Anyway! Snape exclaimed, standing up abruptly. “That is not the question. You can tell Vincent that Potter’s watch is off. As of tomorrow I will put bodyguards at his disposal, whether he likes it or not, and I think we will have him and I a little chat. Thank you Gregory. Take the rest of your day.”

Surprised, Goyle didn’t show it. He bowed and left the office, troubled by this discussion. He didn’t know what to think of Potter and the prince’s behaviour was strange, even, in his view, abnormal.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello beautiful readers,
> 
> Kindly reminder  
> I do not own the Harry Potter Universe nor its characters. They belong to J. K. Rowling, all rights belong to her. This work is a translation of the fanfiction "SAS, Son Altesse Sérénissime" written and posted by Nanola Meylhann on fanfiction.net. I only own the translation.
> 
> On this joyful note, I hope you enjoy this new chapter.

It was barely eight o’clock when Harry left the palace, followed closely by two men in black suits. His bodyguards. At least, that was how they presented themselves. They acted on the Prince’s orders and had to follow their guest wherever he went. Harry had had the audacity to ask if that included the toilet and he hadn't really liked the answer. He quickly realized that his two guardians were not happy with their mission. They weren't being kind. So Harry had made the wise decision to remain silent and do what he had to do.

After a long week of wandering the palace and locked in his room, he needed some fresh air. It had become almost vital. The little walk the day before in the park had done him a lot of good. There was no denying it, he had missed being outside. After all, he had spent a good chunk of the last few years wandering around London. He was perhaps the best guide in town. This was not surprising since he knew the English capital like the back of his hand, knew who to contact if you wanted drugs, tickets, cards, money. London was his city, his playground.

Finally, it was Jack Daniel’s land. The latter had stayed there. Harry Potter had never been there.

He shook his brown locks to get rid of those dark thoughts and thrust his hands into the pockets of his big, thick coat. It was a joy not to be cold, a pleasure not to shiver with each step, not to have to run to warm up even for a few moments.

Harry was fine. He mentally thanked the prince every moment for allowing him to have clothes in his size, adapted to the season. Her closet had never been so full. Even Dudley had never had so many clothes. It had to be said that his obese cousin didn’t care about anything other than video games, computers, consoles and television. It was his mother who bought him his things. Harry wondered if she still did this when her precious son was twenty-one. He tried to imagine himself as a self-sufficient Dudley and the thought alone made him laugh. His cousin was incapable of cooking even a fried egg or a slice of bacon. He did not know how to sponge the table. The only time he had to do it, he had screamed because it was wet and unpleasant.

No, it was certain, Dudley Dursley still had to live with mum and dad, gorging on ice cream and repeating classes one by one. Maybe he hadn’t even made it to college. For Harry that was impossible, even in middle school Dudley was almost unable to read even his first name.

He shook his cousin from his mind in order to focus on the dead landscape around him. Hogwarts was a pretty nation, as he had noticed before. However, everything was dead and the young man could not tell himself that it was a natural phenomenon. The surrounding nature looked like his aunt’s garden when he used weedkiller. It was yellow, brown. As if someone had sprayed weedkiller everywhere, including trees. Admittedly, it was the cold season and they had lost their leaves, yet no tree, even in London, seemed to be rotting. Harry was sure that it would be enough to sneeze or breathe lightly on it for everything to turn to dust.

Hogwarts was beautiful, yet it was also a haunted city. All that remained was the fog that shrouded the streets and poorly maintained houses, and the next horror film could be shot here. Whatever, Harry realized that the houses weren't all that good. Some had significant welts, others cracks, still others had their plaster that was going away, stones that were coming off…

Determined to tour the whole city, Harry took it upon himself to enter. He considered it normal to walk in the streets, to get lost in them to know a place. How many times had he gotten lost in London in the first months of his arrival there? He no longer counted them but had succeeded in finding his way thanks to the panels bearing the plan of the district. In the end, Harry had developed a strong sense of direction and could hang out anywhere.

Hogwarts was much smaller than London, but the number of small streets was significant. They crossed, went in all directions. As if the architect who had thought of the plan had a big blow in the nose or blindfolded and had drawn the plans like that. No straight lines, curves, streets that turned on themselves like a snail to end in a dead end. Harry vowed to get the Hogwarts map so he could see what it looked like from above. For the moment, he preferred to walk on the cobblestones, to try to imagine the interior of these little stone cottages, these little houses pressed together, the life of the people behind these windows. Was she soothing? Or so agitated? What were the inhabitants like?

Apart from the servants, the bodyguards and the prince, Harry hadn’t seen many people. Yes, an old man had kindly shown him the dining room. The rest, he felt like a stranger in this big house. An intruder even. But this was nothing new. At least there was one constant in his life. People shunned him wherever he went. There, people did not even look at him, content to follow their path.

On his way, he saw children and adolescents going to school, backpacking. None seemed to be smiling or laughing, they were all focused on their destination. He had the answer to her question. The people were closed. Like their prince.

Slightly demoralized, Harry opted for another location. He had seen a sign indicating “castle” opposite the princely palace. Curious and eager to see everything, he had decided to go there.

The castle in question was only a ruin on a hillock. There were only sections of the wall sometimes quite high. A tower, no doubt. Harry smiles. He loved old ruins, especially when they offered surprises, like this place. The uneven terrain made it possible to do a little climbing, to gain height or to descend a little lower by borrowing the “holes” in the walls, old doors no doubt.

After an hour of climbing playing goat, Harry stood in the middle of the ruins and tried to put the castle back together from memory. He was the reincarnation of a being who must have seen him finished and still on his feet, the exercise shouldn't be too much of a problem.

It was without counting on the fact that he did not remember anything. Hogwarts, its ruins, its palace… Other than what he had seen as Harry Potter, he couldn’t remember.

This whole story was beyond him. He often had the impression that someone up there was having a lot of fun watching him sink into situations and get out of hand, even if it meant sinking and not being able to come to the surface until a long time later.

Harry glanced quickly behind his back to see if he wasn’t alone or if his bodyguards had gone out for something to drink at the pub, leaving him alone in the middle of the ruins.

“Oh no, ’re still here,” he muttered to himself.

They were about ten meters away, their backs to him observing the surroundings. Harry didn’t like knowing he was being watched. He had the unpleasant impression that each of his deeds and gestures was reported to the prince, dissected, analysed. He felt that he no longer had any freedom.

So was that how celebrities lived, important people? They were watched, glued, watched… It wasn’t fun at all. It was even restrictive.

When a drop of rain fell on his cheek, Harry winced and rolled his eyes. This one was grey, threatening. It was going to rain soon, like everywhere in the UK. The sun was not rare but as someone said, it was nice several times a day. It was true.

Harry was an Englishman, so he fatally accepted the uncertain weather which oscillated between grey and blue spots in the sky.

Another drop fell on his nose. It is high time to return to the palace. Getting soaked was not Harry’s greatest passion even though, due to his work, he had gotten wet more often than he did while waiting under downpours for clients who were rare in this weather. Umbrella was a word that was not in his vocabulary. On the other hand, it seemed to be part of that of his bodyguards since one of them approached, umbrella open and placed it above the head of the guest of his prince.

“Thank you,” Harry muttered, unaccustomed to such thoughtfulness. “But it’s fine, ’m’not made of sugar. It’s not a little rain that’ll melt me.”

He therefore escaped the protection against the drops and proceeded to return to the palace, leaving the two men to follow him.

Once in front of the patio doors, Harry sighed in relief. They had finally arrived. It was about time, the rain had become stronger, almost torrential and the young man was wet. He could have accepted the umbrella, except that part of him had refused to be dependent on others. He had always fended for himself in life. If he hadn’t taken an umbrella, it was his fault. His bodyguard did not have to give up his, even if it meant getting soaked in turn.

The door opened to a maid who bowed in a grimace as Harry walked in, her coat dripping and shoes squeaky. He had been advised to take his old sneakers and his threadbare jeans, at least his new clothes wouldn’t be damaged.

“May I take your coat, Sir?” said the young woman in a thin voice.

Harry gritted his teeth. He couldn’t get over the idea that even there was someone there to undress him. For a moment he wondered if the prince was asking someone to hold his penis in the bathroom. The image made him smile as he abandoned his coat to the maid, forced and forced. He took off his sneakers, his soaked socks and kept them in his hand to go up the stairs. His goal, to lock himself in his room and spend the morning doing nothing.

“Mr. Potter,” he was reminded as he began to climb. “His Highness wishes to speak with you in the small cream drawing room.”

“Oh shit,” Harry moaned. “I didn’t need that.”

He had no desire to speak with the prince, to endure his attempts at evasion, his sarcastic remarks, his embarrassed and disgusted looks at the same time. Their last talk the day before had left him more exhausted than any night he was pushing his passes for a little money, more exhausted than when he had had to find ten thousand pounds.

In general, each conversation with the prince was synonymous with remonstrances or sermons on his way of speaking, behaving, the repetition of the rules… A real ordeal in short. And to think he was going to have to marry her.

The marriage would be followed by divorce a few months later, Harry was sure. He was going to marry the prince, save his principality and leave to find his world, the street, the whores…

“I’m coming!”

He might as well show up right away or he would have a presentiment of the critics later at lunch. He took the direction of the cream salon, his sneakers and socks still in hand, his bare feet treading the cold tiles, his wet pants at the level of his legs sticking unpleasantly to his skin.

Just before knocking on the door, Harry froze as loud voices reached him from the other side. Very curious by nature, he pressed his ear to the panel.

“… Intolerable that you abandoned my daughter! She didn’t deserve this! She was strong enough to wear the crown.”

Someone answered him without a doubt but not loud enough for Harry to hear.

“No!” resumed the female voice. “I cannot tolerate it!”

The door swung open on a woman of about fifty, whom the torments of time had not altered. When his expertly made-up eyes rested on the young man caught at fault, he never had the impression of being a waste, a parasite. And yet he had suffered black looks when he walked the sidewalk.

Andrea Parkinson proudly raised her head and walked away, leaving a surprised Harry.

“Come in Mr. Potter,” Snape said wearily. “Please close the door.”

Harry did so and found the prince already seated in his chair. Severus looked like someone who had just heard bad news.

“Take a seat.”

“Who was it?” Harry began, settling in, taking care to leave his tennis shoes on the floor.

“Countess Andrea Parkinson. The mother of my ex-fiancée.”

“What?” Harry cried, flabbergasted.

“Don’t make that face. What were you thinking? About the fact that I was single? No, before I had to marry you, I was engaged to a woman I loved. But the knowledge that if she ruled by my side, Hogwarts would come to an end and you were the only one who could save everything, we decided to stop everything, break our engagement and call off the marriage. She went to the United States.”

“It’s not my fault,” Harry cried, fully aware that we were capable of blaming him.

It wouldn’t be the first time nor the last. People had a knack for blaming him for a lot. When he was younger, the Dursleys spent their time making him responsible for everything: repeating Dudley, it was because he disturbed him in class fall of the neighbour who had to keep him, a revenge… It was all over. good for pushing it down a little deeper each time.

“You asked a question, I answer you!”

Harry stood up abruptly. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked the question, it was his fault, but he wasn’t there to pay the price.

“If you take it like that, I get out! I have more to give a fuck besides getting yelled at because your ex’s mom showed up.”

“Sit!” Snape ordered. “Now!”

“I’m not your–”

“Shut up Potter, put your arse in that chair!” yelled the prince.

For once, Harry dropped to the place he had just left, quite surprised by Severus’ vocabulary.

“Woah, you can swear when you’re pissed off?” he couldn’t help saying.

“You are tiring.”

“What? I just asked a fucking question. How did I know it’d piss you off? You could’ve told me to shut up, that it wasn’t my business, I would have understood! But no, you answer and I get yelled at!”

“Please excuse me,” said the prince, rubbing his eyes, suddenly looking tired. “Did you go out today?”

“You haven’t heard from the two gorillas that followed me for two hours?”

“No. And I prefer to have your report.”

“Why? Are you afraid for your precious city? I didn’t go banging on clients if that's what makes you feel so relaxed. I just wandered around Hogwarts and then through the ruins. Was there a castle there?”

“Yes, but it goes back several centuries. It had to be dismantled because too unsuitable for use. My ancestor had one built in his image. However, if you do a little research, you will find a plethora of different tales of the origin of the castle and Hogwarts.”

“I didn’t know,” Harry admitted. “It was nice anyway. What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Several things. After a week, how do you feel here?”

“Do you want me to be frank or do you want a huge lie?”

Snape smiled.

“Let’s try the big lie. Then you will tell me the truth.”

“I feel great,” Harry replied.

He was delighted to see that the smile of his interlocutor had disappeared.

“So I take it that this is not the case.”

“Right on, Highness. I’m all alone, I spend my days pissing off like a dead rat. Every step I take is watched and I don’t like it.”

“Your bodyguards are there to protect you. As for the fact that you are alone, nothing prevents you from mingling with the population and making friends. Otherwise, you can always go downstairs to eat instead of staying in your apartments.”

For a bit, Harry would have laughed. Except that he didn't want to.

“you’re kidding me, right?!”

“Come on, what did I say that offended your ears?”

“Do you think I like to isolate myself? That I haven’t seen your relieved look when I leave? I’m not paranoid when it’s the same everywhere. Your servants are happy when they leave my room and yet I’m dressed, I don’t even make any advances to them, nothing. It’s very simple, I scare people off. So don’t tell me to come and eat with you if my presence bothers you so much. Even then you would want me to go.”

He read some surprise and sneered. Did Snape really believe he was so emotionless?

“Don’t shoot that face. Anyway, now you see why I’m not staying.”

“I therefore take it that your decision is taken.”

“My decision? About what?”

“You have something like three weeks to live here. Have you already made your choice?”

“You said it, I have three weeks left. We’ll see at the end. Is that all you wanted to tell me? I’m pretty busy.”

“I thought you were bored like a dead rat? These are your terms. And no, this conversation is not over I’m afraid. Sorry for your other occupations, as crazy as they are.”

He didn’t sound sorry at all but Harry didn’t hold it against him.

“I wanted to discuss with you two points which seemed important to me. At least the second, the first being just simple curiosity.”

Harry didn’t like it at all. The curiosity of some was often misplaced and this prompted people to ask questions that did not concern them.

“Who was this individual we had the – pleasure to meet when we went to collect your things in this– this place?”

This was typically the kind of question Harry hated.

“Nobody. And I thought you didn’t give a fuck about this guy?”

“First of all, make an effort in terms of your vocabulary, otherwise I will hire a teacher who will be happy to hit your fingers with a ruler for each language mistake! Two, yes, that concerns me insofar as he clearly threatened me. So, certainly, I did not seek to know more during this unpleasant episode, however today, it seemed important to me to ask you the question.”

“What if I don't want to answer?”

“I think you owe me a little explanation and that you don’t really have a choice.”

“Yes. Not to answer,” Harry replied in the simplest way.

For the first time since this conversation began and the past week, Snape planted his onyxes in Harry’s flawless emeralds.

“Mr Potter, as I told you, I have been threatened and I do not like it. I don’t know what would have happened if Vincent and Gregory hadn’t been there or if you had been alone. One thing is certain, this person wanted something and was ready to get it by force. I am not the man to accept being threatened and even less to endure seeing a guest undergo the same thing. So you’re going to answer or I’ll take you back to London to deal with him. Of course, you will come back afterwards since your contract is not finished. Speaking of which, he’s only missing a small signature.”

The prince placed three sheets of paper on the coffee table. Harry leaned over slightly and could note that they were three identical copies. He would have meant that signing was not necessary, especially after what Snape had just said, but that meant he refused to submit and that would therefore be grounds for dismissal.

“Take the time to read it, the signature is in no hurry. Let’s go back, who is this man?”

Harry hesitated, bit his lip, his gaze fixed on the pages.

“Walden McNair.”

“So what? What did he want from you?”

“That I reimburse him the sum I had borrowed.”

“How much?”

“Ten thousand bullets.”

At Snape’s stunned hiss, Harry curled up. For him too it was a sum. He could almost feel again the fists and feet of the thugs who had beaten him up in that alleyway, leaving him almost dead with that sword of Damocles hanging over his head.

“Here is a sum. And so he wanted you to give it back to him?”

“Yeah. Usually this guy doesn’t leave much time. I didn’t have the money on me or even at home so…”

He left his sentence hanging.

“What happened?”

“Simple, I could not collect the ten thousand, just six thousand in less than twenty-four hours. He didn’t like it, he let his two gorillas hit me. Then he gave me a little more time to find him the same amount. Except that I was at the hospital. I couldn’t raise the money. If you hadn’t been there, I would have died.”

Snape narrowed his eyelids and Harry wanted to disappear. He didn't like that look, the one that made him feel ridiculous, insignificant, stupid.

“It is lucky we found you in time. Ten thousand pounds sterling is a significant number.”

“I know, ’m not stupid!”

“I never implied such a thing. May I know how you managed to collect six thousand pounds in such a short time?”

“What d’you think?” Harry sneered.

He had the joy of making the prince blush. The slightest hint of his disreputable but ancient profession, and Snape’s face turned as crimson as a ripe tomato.

“When you know how to do it, you can win a hell of a lot of wheat. I really had a hard time.”

“I think that will be enough. Thanks for answering my question.”

“At your service.”

“Second point which concerns you directly. What do you know about your family?”

For once, it was Harry who looked at the man, dumbfounded.

“Huh.”

“The Potters, what do you know about them?”

He tried to remember what his uncle or his aunt or even the latter's sister-in-law could say about his parents.

“Nothing. Aunt Petunia said her sister was a failure and her brother-in-law a notorious alcoholic. They ended up in the set because my dad was drunk. Except that strangely, I don’t believe it.”

“Petunia?”

“Yeah, Petunia Dursley. She’s my aunt, my mother’s sister. I fell in her house when my old fellows slammed. Not cool aunt believe me. Why d’you want to know?”

“I see,” Snape muttered. “And have you never inquired?”

“On them? My parents? No. What for?”

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes closed.

“Well, then I am happy to inform you that your parents, at least your father, are wealthy people and that being the last heir, all that belongs to them is yours by right.”

“What?” Harry said as all his blood deserted his head.

Did he hear correctly?

“James Potter was the descendant of the founder of Potter jewellery. I knew your grandfather. I saw him a few times when he came for orders. A charming man. You look like him.”

“Wait, I think I got it wrong.”

He had been lowered lower than the earth, buried in drudgery under the pretext that it was a good way to earn his living, had to wear the clothes of his obese cousin, settle for the worse part, all for what? Because his uncle and aunt thought he was a burden to them, that he cost money. And now he was learning that his parents were, during their lifetime, perhaps richer than his uncle.

“Being the last surviving Potter descendant, you find yourself at the head of a world-famous jewellery store and a nice jackpot as you would put it so well.”

“No one– No one has ever told me about it.”

“Maybe they didn’t know.”

Still in shock, Harry couldn’t find the strength to chuckle. All those years of hardship in the street, shivering, being afraid, all because they had hidden the truth from him. He who had believed himself without money, miserable… He couldn’t take it.

His uncle and aunt had never had the slightest affection for him, considering him a parasite. However, they had done everything to keep him alive. Until he fled to London.

“Fuck. Shit! They who told me that I was only a good for nothing! They knew! I'm sure they knew! It is not possible otherwise! They– Shit!”

He angrily wiped away the few tears that had managed to run down his cheeks.

“As far as I know, they haven’t issued any wanted notices.”

“To do what? I was a load they didn’t want. If they could’ve killed me, they would have. And I bet if I’m still alive today it was to make them hit the jackpot by pretending to be dead.”

Severus seemed to be thinking.

“No, that does not make sense. They would have no interest in doing such a thing. On the other hand, and I regret to announce it to you, to wait until your majority to eliminate you, that is more plausible. If they are the only survivors of your family, your fortune would have come to them through family ties with you and your mother who married a Potter. They are your closest family, if I am not mistaken, and there is no other heir possible.”

Just to imagine his uncle or aunt hating him enough to instigate his death as soon as he had possession of his inheritance in order to claim it when he died made him ill.

“Think I’m going to throw up.”

“Lie down on the sofa. I’ll have someone call to bring us a cloth.”

He helped Harry to stretch out on the small, flowered sofa. The young man was not feeling well at all. Nausea was not actually his main concern. He had to restrain himself not to pass out. Snape put a pillow under her head and walked away for a moment to pull a string nearby.

A few seconds later, a servant came running up and bowed.

“Go get me a basin of water and a cloth. Mr. Potter is not feeling well.”

“Whose fault,” Harry grumbled blankly. “You have a way of announcing things without taking gloves.”

“Oh, Mr. Potter, I am blown away. You pronounced a sentence correctly, abandoning your English of the cities.”

“Fuck you.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Severus smiled at him. It was the first time he had done this. A smile, a real one and not one of his sardonic smirks that he knew the secret and that Harry wanted him to swallow. The prince was very charming when he smiled like that.

However, this only lasted a few seconds. Snape regained his neutral expression and moved away from his guest who had a pang in his heart. One again. For a brief moment he had thought he was important to someone. But that had only been an impression. One more.

Unwilling to be so weak in front of others, Harry straightened up. To hell with his dizziness. Besides, they had passed.

“You seem to be doing a little better, advised the prince.”

“Yeah, that’s cool. Are we done this time? I would like to take a piss.”

It was just a huge lie, he just wanted to get out of here and lock himself in his room for the rest of the day.

“You will have to make yourself known to the competent authorities in order to be able to prevail on what is yours.”

“’k bye.”

0o0

Severus was lost. He was relieved that Potter wasn’t there.

It was stupid but seeing him lying on the couch, looking so fragile after the news broke, Severus had wanted to hug him. Worse still, he had felt the desire to kiss her. Lucky that nothing happened otherwise he could hear the kid's mocking laughter and his voice calling him a repressed homo.

Except Severus wasn't gay, homosexual. The thought of kissing a man just made him want to run very far without looking back. He accepted this marriage simply because there would never be anything between Potter and him. No intimate relationships. They would be just a married couple, two men, who would each live their lives on their own while ensuring that the crown was not tainted.

So why had he wanted to?

Severus couldn’t understand this sudden need. Was it because Potter was handsome Attractive? Well-done of his person? Even the prince could not deny it, it would be to hide his face or to be blind.

Was it because he had shown a little weakness that he had looked human for a moment, lying there on that couch?

His Highness massaged the time, lost.

There was one thing the prince hated, it was being lost, especially because of a younger boy, who sold his body to the highest bidder, with hateful language and behaviour far from protocol.

At times Severus felt like he was talking to an adult, at other times to a child. However, he had to remember that his guest was unlike any other, Potter had a shady past, bad frequenting and amoral work.

“Stop procrastinating about this kid. In three weeks, you will know if he stays or leaves. If he stays, you will make sure he becomes a good prince consort. If he leaves, you can say goodbye to Hogwarts and go live somewhere else.”

Severus closed his eyes. Here he was talking to himself. It was not a good sign. He took a deep breath and exhaled gently before standing up. Usually he would have gone back to his office to work. There, his mind had other things in mind than reading documents. He had a sudden urge to get some fresh air. Except it was raining heavily and it didn’t look like it was going to end.

The walk in the park was a failure. But there were always other destinations, like the library.

Finally, his footsteps led him to his study, where he locked himself in until lunch, until one of his servants informed him that the meal was served.

“Has Mr. Potter been warned? he asked knowing that the answer would be yes and that his guest would stay in his room.”

“Yes Your Highness but he said he wouldn’t eat here.”

“What do you mean, he won’t eat here?” Severus exclaimed. “Where is he?”

He was ready to rush to the phone to call the police or his bodyguards to search Hogwarts and its surroundings. What held him back was that Vicky or Francesca had to know where he had been and that his two guardians had to follow him. If it wasn’t, then Severus could notify his police.

“Call in his servants.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Mary said, bowing before hurrying off.

A few long minutes later, the two young women in Potter’s service appeared, their fingers wiggling their aprons.

“Did he tell you where he was going to eat?”

“At the pub, Your Highness,” Vicky replied.

“At the pub?”

“Yes Your Highness. Mr. Potter said he would eat in town. He saw an ad this morning and as, I quote, his presence is not really tolerated in this hut, he prefers to break and go eat where at least he is sure he has no place.”

It sounded like Potter's language, but more polished though.

“What pub?”

“The Three Brooms.”

Severus raised an eyebrow. He knew this place. It was a respectable pub run by Mrs. Rosmerta, a friendly woman.

“At least he didn’t go to the Boar’s Head. Are Stan and Ernie with him?”

The two young girls looked at each other uncertainly. Severus closed his eyes. He would have to find out more about this thorny issue. A Potter in the wild was not to please him, quite the contrary. Who knows what he was capable of doing.

“Good, thank you ladies.”

He stood up, let the two women leave the room, and called his two bodyguards who appeared moments later.

“Where are Ernie and Stan?” Severus asked.

“They’re with Mr. Potter,” Vincent assured him, pointing to the visible headset through which all the palace bodyguards were in contact.

That was reassuring. If Potter wasn't alone, then he wouldn't be doing anything stupid. And then Severus castigated himself. Until then, his guest had given him no reason to worry. He had behaved well if his way of speaking was omitted and he had been clear that he understood perfectly that tearing the crown was not the right thing to do.

“About what time did they leave?”

“Around noon, Your Highness.”

Which was only half an hour. If Potter had left on foot, he had just arrived since it took almost thirty minutes to walk down from the Prince's Palace to the city centre.

“Go get the car ready. We will eat in town for lunch.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

So Severus watched the landscape pass behind the tinted windows of his car. He hadn't eaten at the pub in years, actually after graduating. By the time he returned to Hogwarts, he had lunched in restaurants with many stars. It was for business meals. Otherwise, he preferred to stay at the palace. Even with Pansy, he didn’t go out too much, avoiding showing off in public so that his face wouldn't end up in the headlines.

The vehicle suddenly stopped in a narrow, cobbled street, just outside the green painted double doors of the Three Broomsticks pub. His driver hastened to come and open the door for him, then the glass door with small panes.

“Thank you Max.”

“To the pleasure of His Highness.”

Vincent and Gregory framed him. His entry into the Three Broomsticks was followed by a long silence. Obviously, no one had expected the prince's visit to this modest establishment.

“Your Highness?” Mrs. Rosmerta said, rushing towards him. “We– Would you like to eat here?”

Severus smiled amiably at her.

“I’ll have our best table prepared for you,” the manager hastened.

“No, it won’t be necessary. Has Mr. Potter arrived? We have a business meeting.”

A lie but at least no one would speculate on the prince’s real intentions.

He could read in Rosmerta’s gaze that she had to mentally walk around the customers present. The pub was full but the woman knew almost everyone. There were the regulars and the rest. Spotting the stranger should not be very difficult for this director of the establishment with a prodigious memory.

Severus had always enjoyed the atmosphere of this bistro. It was good there. A large fireplace warmed the great room with its low ceiling and exposed beams. With the weather like it was outside, coming here allowed you to warm up.

“Yes. He is here. But–”

“Good.”

“I wasn’t warned – I mean, he didn't tell me you had to eat together. If I had known–”

“An oversight, nothing serious,” reassured Severus who perfectly felt the manager on the verge of a panic attack.

Rosmerta was absent for a moment, then she motioned for him to follow her. Severus crossed the great hall under the curious gaze of the inhabitants. There was only hope that nothing would be in the diary and especially not its connection to Potter even if everyone had to wonder.

He went up a flight of stairs to get upstairs. It was a small room set up under the eaves. She was just as warm as the large downstairs room. He recognized her easily. It was here that he and his parents stayed when they came. A question of privacy.

Potter was there, surrounded by Ernie Prang and Stan Ring Shunpike, two bodyguards who acted more as drivers than protectors.

“Gentlemen, you can leave us,” Snape said.

The two men bowed and walked away with their colleagues. Severus heard their footsteps on the wooden staircase. They had to wait downstairs, preventing anyone from passing.

Rosmerta put up a chair for the prince and hurried downstairs to get some cutlery and a plate.

“What are you doing here?” Harry growled as he put down his fork he was playing with while he waited for his lunch.

“What do you think? I come to eat.”

“Here? Facing me? Wouldn’t you take me for a moron?”

“The Three Broomsticks is the best establishment in Hogwarts. We used to eat there when I was a child. I admit that it has been… several years since I set foot there again.”

“Cool! Did you wait until I went there to squat too? Great! Don’t you want to leave me alone? Or that’s another trick to spy on me and make sure I’m doing nothing that might hurt your ass. You or your crown, I don’t give a damn, it’s the same.”

Severus didn’t have time to answer since he heard someone come up. It was Rosmerta with her arms full. She placed a plate and cutlery in front of the prince and handed him a menu.

“Thank you,” Severus said.

“I’ll let you choose, I’ll come back later.”

They watched her come down the stairs then Snape turned to Harry.

“Where were we?”

“Nowhere. You make me watch and I don't like it. If I went to eat in town, it's so that they leave me alone. But you have to believe that even that is too much to ask. In fact, to have peace, I have to eat in my room.”

Severus could easily sense the bitterness inside Harry, that anger he was trying to contain. Sarcasm was a way to let it go.

“Seriously, what are you doing here? I thought my mere presence disgusted you.”

“Disgust me? No.”

He ignored the fact that it was not the right term, but there was something quite disturbing about Potter, it was true.

“I think we started off on the wrong foot.”

The flawless emeralds settled on him, scrutinizing him, probing him, trying to see if he was telling the truth. Severus refrained from squirming nervously in his chair, uncomfortable.

“You are the first person besides my parents who makes the effort to – want to know me,” Harry whispered, his eyes shining with contained tears.

“The first one?” Severus repeated, surprised to the point that he did not pick up the perfect sentence his interlocutor had just said.

“Yes.”

“But your uncle and aunt–”

“Didn’t care about me. The less I was in their field of vision, the better they were.”

Severus wanted to believe that these two freaks did not like their nephew but from there not knowing him, knowing his tastes ... it was hard to believe.

“And at school?”

Potter gave a bitter laugh.

“I didn’t have a friend. People were looking at me and running off and then Dudley – my cousin, told them that if someone dared to come a little too close, they would get screwed. Until I left there, I didn’t have a single friend, or even an acquaintance, to call for when I was sick.”

“No friend?”

The prince was stunned. He himself had never had many but he had had and they were still in touch. Spending his entire schooling, or most of it, alone couldn't be easy every day.

“No. Anyway, Dudley’s threats were useless since people were running away. As if I had scabies, rabies or plague or leprosy. They came and stood in the process. How do you want to have mates?”

“It’s a good question. What do you think this is due to?”

“You tell me since you did like them. It’s only when I was fucking with my clients that it didn’t bother. On the contrary, they came with their cocks to attention as soon as I gave a small smile.”

Potter allowed himself a smirk as Severus shook his head. However, he said nothing.

“I never knew what made them run away. The others at school.”

“Have you looked at yourself in a mirror?” ventured the prince.

“No kidding? Yes, of course! Other than a binocular scarecrow, I haven’t seen much.”

“A binocular scarecrow?” Severus repeated in surprise.

A kid who had no awareness of his powers of seduction other than the fact that people paid him to share a good time. A kid who thought he was ugly because people shunned him. A kid who was ultimately much more miserable and bad about himself than he wanted to show.

“You and the people didn’t get it.”

He had to admit that he had a hard time getting it himself, but he was sure he knew more than the main one, Potter.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello beautiful readers,
> 
> Kindly reminder  
> I do not own the Harry Potter Universe nor its characters. They belong to J. K. Rowling, all rights belong to her. This work is a translation of the fanfiction "SAS, Son Altesse Sérénissime" written and posted by Nanola Meylhann on fanfiction.net. I only own the translation.
> 
> On this joyful note, I hope you enjoy this new chapter.

Looking at Potter, Severus wondered why out of all the possible sentences to say he had pulled this one out.

“Huh? Understand what?” Harry exclaimed.

“I am not attracted to men, I prefer to remind you straight away.”

“That’s what you think. Me, I bet you will end up thinking differently if I take care of you.”

Severus preferred not to pick up but he was sure Potter knew what he was saying. Worse yet, he was almost sure the young man had already managed to change sides with a heterosexual.

“Harry, you are – how to say that without–”

Again, Rosmerta’s footsteps interrupted him. He fell silent so that the manager wouldn’t suspect the content of their discussion and realize that it wasn’t a professional conversation. Severus knew the boss, she was quite curious and very gossip. Anyone at Hogwarts could have known about it during the day.

“You chose?” she asked, notebook in hand and pen in the other.

Neither had really taken the time to make a choice, too busy as they were talking.

Severus opened his menu and smiled as the gratin dauphinois and mint roast beef appealed to him. So he placed his order while Harry was still watching, hesitating.

“The same thing.”

“Perfect. And as a drink? Some water?”

“And wine,” Severus replied. “A Côte-de-Castillon.”

The prince greatly appreciated wines from the southwestern region of France and was delighted that The Three Broomsticks had a few bottles of them.

“I’ll bring you all this.”

They waited once again for the director of the place to come down to be able to resume their conversation.

“What is a Côte-de-Castillon?”

“Wine.”

“I got it right, thank you teacher. But what is it?”

“It’s a Bordeaux wine. A red.”

“Bordeaux? Where is it? Not in England.”

Obviously Potter had huge gaps in geography. But it was not surprising, he had left school at fourteen.

“No, it’s in France. In the southwest. I had the opportunity to go there during my studies. Very beautiful region.”

“I never left the country. My only real trip was to Privet Drive in London. On foot.”

“On foot ? But it’s been… a few kilometres?”

Severus was unable to say how much since he couldn't quite place this quarter.

“About thirty kilometres. At the end, I hitchhiked a bit.”

Everything Severus wouldn’t even have tried or even considered trying. Already because he would have died, massacred by his father, and then because he was suspicious of drivers he did not know.

\- Arrived in London, I tried to find a place to stake for the night. Except that the hotels, even shabby, want money and I just had something to eat so I pawned under a bridge. The next day, I tried to find a job. But I was too young. In the end, I stayed on the street to beg for a few steaks, just to have something to eat. I never wanted to sell myself. But I had no choice. The first time, I whined like a kid. Then I asked others for advice to make it go better. Chui became a pro. Now it fits like butter.

The prince didn't know if he should laugh, throw up or cry. Hearing this sordid story being told like we talk about the weather made him sick.

“How old were you?” he wanted to know.

“Fourteen. I stayed with a guy for a few months. He was older but it was cool. He gave me something to eat, I had a stake, some steaks. It was easy. In return, he could fuck me whenever he wanted. But I got my slap because I was his trophy and he kept me locked up in his house, so I broke. Was not happy.”

Severus shook his head, disgusted by what he heard. This kid had lived longer in seven years than he had in twenty-nine years. No wonder he talked badly and behaves like he didn’t care.

“Don’t say you didn’ know.”

“I knew of your departure, of the “birth” of Jack one day, by chance, and of your… profession. But that… How could I imagine that?”

However, Harry had almost spat at him that this profession, he had not chosen it, that his life had been difficult since the death of his parents. However, Severus could not have suspected that this was so.

“My life is shit. I don’t want to make any effort because it always falls on me, but I got used to it.”

“You state that as inevitable.”

“I wonder what they are going to throw at me. If there is something cool in my life, the next day I’ll be in trouble. It’s like that. By the way, you wanted to tell me what to do on time before this good woman shows up. Something that I wouldn’t have understood, you are not queer and other bullshit like that.”

Severus would have preferred Potter to completely forget about this subject. Obviously this was not the case.

“I don’t know how to tell you that without imagining certain things.”

“Hey beh, like everyone else, spitting. I will sort it out.”

“How do you see yourself?”

“Huh? What the fuck is this?”

“What vision do you have of yourself?” Severus attempted.

“I don’t see the connection with the fact that I don’t catch a single ting and that the others either.”

“Just answer.”

“I told you, I’m a scarecrow. And again, I’m mean to the scarecrows. I’m small, not too stupid but not super smart. I’m good enough in bed to earn money…”

Potter hadn’t understood, but it wasn’t surprising. If he had been asked this question, Severus would have spoken of his behaviour, his qualities and his faults. While it was the physique that the Prince wanted to address.

“No, if you saw yourself in the street, what would you do?”

Harry shrugged, surprised.

“I’d bog off like the others.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not pretty. Ok, not misshapen but not handsome. Have you looked at me?”

Severus gave himself a moment to carefully observe Harry. Once again he noticed the high cheekbones, peach skin, slightly trumpet-like nose, hair that went all over the place, big green eyes, a full mouth, a square chin, masculine features but a feminine softness.

And again, a sense of urgency seized him. He needed to get away, to run away from here. But he restrained himself, trying to figure out why he was feeling this when Potter wasn’t abnormal or misshapen. He had everything in the right place. By beauty standards, the boy was very handsome. Like those models who posed in magazines.

“Yes.”

“So what?”

“I don’t see anything about you that could be out of the ordinary. Aside from the fact that you are–”

“Ugly, hideous? I must have something wrong with people running around.”

“Neither,” Severus assured him.

He who had searched for hours for the reason why Harry was making him uncomfortable, had just had the answer. The boy was handsome. Too much perhaps. The behaviour of the people and his made him think of these packs of animals, these groups, which excluded one of them because he was different.

Potter was. It remained to be seen why.

“You know humans are animals.”

It was terribly demeaning to say such a thing, but it was the strict truth. And man was without a doubt the wildest and cruellest beast in the animal kingdom.

“Yeah, Harry brings slowly, not sure if he sees the report.”

“We have an instinct that cries out at us to flee when we sense danger.”

“Yeah. I still don’t see where you are going with this.”

“Yet it is simple. The people around you see you as a danger.”

There, when the young man blinked, his mouth open, Severus knew he was reaching lost.

“W–what? Harry stammered. It doesn't make sense your thing. It is–”

“Perfectly plausible when you pay a little attention to it. You are not ugly and I am sure if we ask all the customers in this pub they will tell me the same. Except that you don’t fall within the criteria of beauty that we consider to be – normal.”

A fork appeared in his field of vision, causing him to step back to avoid ending up dazed.

“Should know. Where are you coming from?”

“Put that fork down, please, I care about my eyes.”

Docile, Potter did so before starting to play with his spoon on the red paper placemat.

“Human nature, like animal nature, sets aside what is different from it because it does not meet the standards. People with disabilities – we all have a certain reluctance to approach them, we even tend to look at them and then turn our backs on them. No?”

He could already hear in his head the cries of horror of those who wanted to be defenders of these people. Only, he could not deny that the handicapped, when they were carriers of a severe handicap, he had difficulty.

“Yes,” Harry admitted.

“Why ?”

“’Cause they’re not like us, not normal.”

“Exactly. Now take an ordinary person. What will your reaction be?”

“I don't know,” Harry replied, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t care, I think. If they’ve nothing, I don’t need to be interested. But it depends on the people, for you or me, it will be commonplace, for another, it will be pretty or beautiful.”

It was human subjectivity. Severus completely agreed with this. But that was not where he wanted to come from.

“Certainly. If you don’t mind, let’s move on to someone you think is pretty or beautiful. What are you doing?”

“I don't know. It depends on what I want to have to do with them. If it’s a guy, get to know each other to – start a more or less long relationship based on sex and a little affection.”

“You're improving,” Snape congratulated him. “Well done. No swear words and a very well-constructed sentence.”

Harry stuck his tongue out at her in a very mature fashion.

“What if it’s a girl?”

“Well. I find girls stupid. At least those of my age. They whine about everything and nothing and have no conversation except to talk about blokes or the crap that someone’s done to them and therefore they piss him off. After, if it’s just giving an opinion on chicks like in magazines, yeah, but it’s edited.”

Severus felt that they were taking the wrong direction. The fault was his, he tended to forget that his interlocutor was homosexual.

“Let’s take an example. The manager of this establishment, how do you find her?”

“Yeah, she’s pretty,” Harry said slowly.

Which was to Severus a “pretty” looking like a “run-of-the-mill”.

“Would you go talk to him? Let’s say it’s to – ask for a cigarette when you’re both out on the street?”

Why had he taken the example of cigarettes, he still wondered, especially since he had not smoked for years.

“If you had to choose between an ordinary person and another pretty to ask for a cigarette, which one would you take? Let’s assume that you have the choice between two men or two women.”

“The more drinkable of the two I think. Where are you coming from? What does all these questions about the different beauty criteria mean?”

“To this extend. What do you think of people who are too good-looking?”

“Too beautiful, in the sense “oh they’re too beautiful”?” Potter mimed, taking a high-pitched voice that was not unlike the intonation of girls. Or too beautiful in the sense of “I would shag them”?”

“Neither. Too beautiful as in . An unreal beauty that seems almost inhuman.”

“It don’t exist or the guy or the chick is altered and again, the surgery sometimes does more harm than good.”

“I can only agree with you. But I wasn’t talking about cosmetic surgery. I was talking about natural beauty. Just admit it’s possible,” he added seeing Potter’s scepticism.

After all, he had a perfect example in front of him.

“Ok, let’s admit. And then?”

“You see him or her, what do you do?”

Harry opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. He played with his spoon, deep in thought, his elbows on the table.

“An unreal beauty, almost inhuman. Uh - dunno. I’m gonna see them? There is also the inhuman side. Damn, I imagine such a bomb. It must bring together a lot of people. She needs to know who to choose.”

“I think on the contrary that she must be quite alone. That people should go and see her, out of curiosity and attraction. But by being at its height, they must perceive this feeling of danger that it gives off. They have this instinct that screams at them that this is not normal, that they should run away.”

Potter stared at him, dumbfounded, frozen in his chair.

“Do not look at me as if I have just announced that the earth is round and that it revolves around the sun.”

“I – I don’t understand what– what you mean by people flee from this person because she is beautiful. It does not make sense.”

“Yes. If we start from the principle that humans are like animals and whether they consciously reject what is different. We hate anything out of the ordinary. What do you think witch hunts were? These women burned because they had been convicted of witchcraft had done little or nothing. There were just some things people didn't understand and blamed so-called witches in order to put the blame on someone. Look, a person just needs to be a little bit marginal to be left out. Sometimes it shows with the dress. Other times, with just the physical. Take the fashion. How many times as a student have I heard people denigrate their peers for not having the latest jeans or shoes?”

“Yeah, that’s not stupid. But what does that mean? Where are we coming from?”

He didn’t understand or didn’t want to understand. This was how Severus saw it.

“To you. After what I just told you, where do you rank?”

Potter didn’t answer. A few seconds later, Rosmerta’s footsteps were heard on the stairs. She appeared, her arms laden with bottles of wine and water, which she presented to the one who had ordered before placing them all on the table.

“Your dishes are coming.”

“Thank you.”

At least the manager seemed to let her stress down. She was more relaxed and had almost forgotten that there was a prince in this room.

Once alone, Severus fixed his gaze on Potter who cruelly mistreated his lip with his teeth. Again, the prince felt the urge to kiss her. It was a muffled desire that he couldn't quite manage because it was new to him. This sudden and inexplicable attraction to a man left him perplexed and quite terrified.

“So?” he continued to give himself a certain composure.

“I don’t know what you smoked before coming, but we’ll have to stop.”

“I no longer smoke, rarely drink and am very far from wanting to take drugs. I am perfectly sane, thank you. Since you are not determined to answer, I will answer it for you. You are not misshapen, do not have a physical or mental handicap. You are normal shall we say. However, people just walk away from you as soon as they see you up close. Which leads me to think and say that you are in the second category.”

Harry burst out laughing.

“Well then. Yeah, you really have to stop smoking Highness, you’re getting insane.”

Severus just smiled. He knew he was right. So far Potter wasn't ready to admit it.

“What are you doing here?” he inquired a bit harshly.

“I thought this point had been clarified earlier, when you already asked me the question.”

The man fell silent, remembering that was not the case at all.

“No, we quickly drifted onto another subject, namely me,” Harry grumbled. “And I didn’t get my answer. Do you shoot me personally?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Fuck, it’s not complicated to get it. Have you decided to follow me personally? Aren’t your guys sufficient anymore?”

“My guys as you say are there to protect you. I have made them available to you. They will follow you wherever you go and don’t try to give them away. As for my presence, it is due to you. When I learned that you don’t eat at the palace but in town, I had the idea to come and join you.”

Either way was not wrong but, and Severus was the first to realize it, it sounded like a date.

“I wouldn't want to disrespect you–”

“It would be a great first indeed,” Severus retorted.

“But you’re not queer, you don’t like cocks,” Harry continued, pressing exactly where it blocked. “Except you pretend we’re dating. Suddenly we believe that you have a broom at the bottom of–”

“Thank you for not finishing this sentence,” interrupted the prince.

“And suddenly, it looks like you want me. Should know. If you want something, there is a supplement.”

Severus closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh. He should have known that Potter would reduce everything to sex. It was predictable. He had to admit that a woman from the same background as the young man would have given him this kind of advance, he would have reconsidered the question.

However, he had to find an excuse that didn’t sound too much like that of a someone in love who ignores himself.

“I wish nothing more that we spend a little time together, in all good honour. Because, after all, if in three weeks you decide to stay, we will be engaged. It seems normal to me to take the time to discuss with the person who would share my life in a completely platonic way, that is understood.

“I guarantee that in two months, straight or not, you will come begging me to fuck me because you are in need and that in the end, a hole is a hole.”

Severus vowed never to do such a thing. He was not a horny animal that needed to fill an urge. Just the thought of using Potter for that made him nauseous. Using a man at all was simply out of the question.

“Breathe, you’re as pale as an arse. I’d hate to give you word of mouth if you fall for it.”

Everything in his voice clearly indicated that he was not against it.

“Sex is not dirty. Looks like you’re gonna puke. It’d be a shame before eating.”

And there Potter was clearly making fun of him.

A long silence greeted this reply. Rosmerta reappeared to place their order in front of them.

0o0

The wine wasn’t quite to Harry’s taste. He preferred stronger spirits, like whisky or vodka. Except that in this kind of place, ordering this kind of drink during a meal, especially in the company of His Serene Highness, it was not done and it was a shame.

The prince’s presence here had surprised the young man at first. Their discussion about his so-called beauty made him realize that Snape was really mad. His incongruous request had been a sign. There it had become obvious.

His host was strange and Harry couldn’t quite figure him out. He had thought he could do it, but since a while ago, since Severus had stared at him for a long time, seeming to be looking at him with a certain eagerness, then told him that he was just more handsome than the sexiest supermodel in the world. magazines or the top-rated actress, Harry needed to rethink his judgment.

While eating the delectable melting gratin dauphinois, Harry glanced at the prince.

The latter had exquisite manners. His way of eating was like a dance. All in grace. The back straight, the movements slow… nothing to do with Harry standing badly.

Severus was not a model of beauty but it was necessary to admit that he had a lot of charm. His dark eyes reflected a certain intelligence and his way of speaking, an ease of the language. He could be kind, cold, sarcastic just by his words. He made Harry feel like he was just a poor jerk sometimes.

The brunette knew he was not very intelligent. He had not finished school, for lack of means and because he was alone, a minor and had no desire to be sent back to the Dursleys. His education limited by his host family made him poor in good manners and his experience in the streets, rich in vocabulary as flowery as it is colourful.

It was a fact, Harry Potter was no genius, far from it. But he wasn’t completely stupid either. Snape was not being honest with himself. It was what the young man from the street could see.

At first cold and sarcastic, then very distant and now he was almost… clingy for no reason. His presence at the Three Broomsticks, his lamentable excuse and this meal. As if he believed Harry was going to leave without paying.

Now, he had to admit that the idea had crossed his mind, before putting it purely and simply somewhere in his mind, because he just couldn't cheat while living in the palace, which you could trace back to. to him and get him arrested. Especially since Snape would risk cutting him to pieces. Besides, buying himself a meal, for once he had a little money, could turn out to be quite new.

“While I think about it, Mr. Potter–”

“Harry,” replied the latter. “Mr Potter, that’s… I prefer Harry.”

He didn’t know why he had just said that. Asking to be called that was to allow some form of privacy and he wasn't ready for that with Snape.

“Very well. Harry then.”

Potter didn’t quite understand why his name rolled like that in the prince’s mouth gave him chills. He hastened to drink his glass of water to gain composure.

“Yeah?”

“I wanted to see with you what we talked about this morning.”

“What d’we talk about? I have talked to you more in the last few days than in my entire life.”

He suppressed a smile as he saw Snape briefly closing his eyes, jaded at his vocabulary which was, for now, perfectly correct.

“You and your heritage,” sighed the prince.

It was still hard for Harry to digest that his entire life was a lie. The Dursleys had always said that his parents were just good-for-nothing who saw fit to die in a car accident, while his uncle and aunt knew it was not so, that their nephew was there. heir to Potter jewellery. They hadn’t said anything to get their hands on his fortune.

For Harry, it was certain. He even wondered if his uncle and aunt hadn’t tried, soon after his escape, to pass him off as dead in order to touch his inheritance. Snape assured that this was not really plausible. However, he was a long way from knowing the Dursleys like Harry. Petunia and Vernon were tight-fisted who refused to lose a pence for anyone other than themselves or their son whom they outrageously spoiled.

For years Harry had thought this was a way for them to show their nephew that he was nothing to them. Even today, he said so. Whenever, in a supermarket, his eyes had rested on the smallest toy he wished he had owned, his aunt would offer Dudley a huge and indecently expensive stuffed animal, giving Harry a defiant look.

Since he was fifteen months old, Harry had nothing. No cuddly toys, no toys, apart from the broken ones from his cousin that he had collected in the trash, no books. Nothing. Living on the streets hadn’t caused him to burden himself with unnecessary possessions. He only had a few clothes, an old watch that no longer worked, a telephone and a photograph of his parents. More than twenty years of living with little had pushed him to become attached to the minimum because he had nothing.

So learning that he was the heir to a large fortune was hardly conceivable. Money had always been hard to find, to obtain. The fact of having it somewhere, just for him… he preferred not to think about it until nothing was certain, that he did not have the document attesting it in his hands.

“Yeah, well?”

“What are you planning to do?”

“What do you mean ?”

“Mr P– Harry, you are not without knowing that for… seven years, Harry Potter has disappeared and that nothing has really been done to find you. There was an investigation as to your “departure” if I may say so, but the matter was closed until you deigned to return. You have been in the wild for seven years and three years of age. At the end of ten years less a day, without any news from you, the money intended for you will be donated to the only family you have left. And I can assure you that this is a very nice amount of money.”

“If they haven’t already taken everything.”

“No. According to the police, it is a fugue. The file has been closed. But as long as there is no proof of death in a runaway, such as kidnapping, and as proof of death I hear a body, then your family cannot touch anything.”

“How do you know all this?” Harry asked.

“How do you think I was able to find you?”

It was an obvious question to which Potter had no real answer. He strongly doubted that the police had achieved this feat while he himself was on the street. If the services had been able to get their hands on him, he would have been, at best a slave, at worst, dead at the hands of his uncle.

“Uh… Dunno.”

“I hired a private investigator. I didn’t want to put the police on the spot so that nothing could leak into the media.”

“It’s not logical. I would trust one of those detectives less than the cops. Anyway, what are you supposed to do to – get back what belongs to my parents?”

“What’s up to you. Do you have identity papers?”

Harry thought for a moment and shook his head. No, he had no papers.

“No birth certificate?”

“No. I wasn’t the one who handled my papers when I was a kid. I had nothing. I don’t even know if my uncle or my aunt has it. They must have sold him out.”

“A chance for you, it can always be asked. Where were you born?”

“Uh… a village lost in the green. Godric’s Hollow. Well, that’s what my aunt always said when we asked her my place of birth.”

“You don’t seem to believe it.”

“I looked for this place one day and I didn’t find it so I’m not sure if it exists or not.”

“Date of Birth?”

“July 31, 1980.”

“What hour?”

“Well. Shouldn’t ask too much of my aunt. She couldn’t stand me. It was already just that she knew my date of birth so the time…”

It would have been a miracle.

“What do I have to do specifically?”

“For?”

“Well being able to prove that I’m alive!”

“Already apply for a birth certificate where you were born. Then, why not try a DNA test–”

“Hey, don’t you need something to compare?”

“At the risk of sounding very down to earth and– quite– how to say, shocking, your parents are deceased. They are, I hope, buried somewhere. We can always, if it was not done during the autopsy, ask to recover a piece of bone, or a tooth or whatever in order to have DNA particles. As for you, a hair will suffice. At least you will have proof of parentage with your father and mother. And then I think it will be enough for you to be recognized as Harry Potter. Another investigation will be carried out, in my humble opinion.”

Harry closed his eyes, exhausted from the start. He didn't really know what he ultimately wanted and wondered if leaving his uncle and aunt what was rightfully his was not so bad in the end.

“And you in this story?”

“Me?” said the prince.

“Yeah. If the fact that I’m alive is to be known, it will suck in the cottages when we find out that you are engaged to – that,” Harry replied, pointing to himself. And worse, the investigation will lead to my past. If I'm really the heir to Potter jewellery, there will be journalists who will–”

“Stop,” Severus ordered. Breathe! You are going to pass out stupidly from speaking so fast. Then, all in good time. While we are discussing this subject, I am unfortunately certain that there will be an investigation of you from the journalists once I have formalized our engagement, which will only happen if you agree, i.e. in three weeks. This means that you are very likely to have to answer for your actions.

“Looks like I killed someone. I’m not a monster. I've just–”

“By answering for your actions I meant facing some truth or blatant lies,” Severus interrupted. “I’d rather warn you that the public may not take this matter lightly and that your past will come right back to you, not in the best possible way.”

Harry wanted to leave the table and run away. He wanted to say he was stopping everything. He didn’t feel able to face anything that could be let go, to spit in his face. His past, those seven years as a prostitute, he was not proud of. But he hadn’t really had a choice. It was either that or die under a bridge.

“What if I go?”

“At the end of this period? It would be your strictest right. However, as crazy as it sounds, you shouldn’t be.”

“Huh?”

Snape laughed at him. Do not care about ? Harry risked being killed, threatened, humiliated by hundreds of people from the princely court of Hogwarts, if not more. If it were to cross the borders of the principality, he was sure to have testimonials from clients, from “acquaintances” who did not even know him, from people claiming that he was just a crummy… And would it be a shame if he did?

“The one of us who has the most to lose is me. If we come to the engagement, I’ll be a prince who breaks an engagement with a young woman of a perfectly suitable birth to bond with a young man who has lived on the streets, who has carnally associated with others. men for a fee and who is – did I say it before? a man.”

“In this case, I had nothing to do with it, okay,” Harry growled, outraged at feeling like he was wearing the hat when he was not guilty of anything except being the child of a prophecy. “You came to look for me. I hadn’t asked for anything! To hear you say, everything that happens is my fault. To believe that I do not risk my skin myself, that–”

“Why do you always get on your high horses?” Severus inquired calmly, and Harry had a sudden urge to strangle him. “I am only stating a fact! You are a man, I am a man. You had intimate relationships with other men for money, you lived on the streets, I broke my engagement with the woman I loved in order to save Hogwarts! Where did I accuse you of anything?”

“You implied that I was responsible for your shit!”

“I will be a hypocrite and a liar to assure such a thing! Especially since I perfectly remember coming to pick you up in the pouring rain in London! I can understand that you may be afraid of the repercussions of what this engagement and even the consequences that this investigation of your true identity could have on you. Except that you are forgetting two small details and they are the ones that make me say you shouldn’t be scared.

“Oh yeah, which ones?” Harry retorted coldly, jaw clenched in pain and fist clenched on his knife.

Snape had better speak.

“Remind me how old you were when it all started, that you were homeless?”

“Fourteen years old, so what?!”

“So what? People will see a lost teenager looking for lairs. A kid who lived on the streets. A child who had to survive. For four years you have been – almost – raped by adults. There was misappropriation of a minor even if you consented. This, what you have experienced, there is little chance that people annoy you for it. Your life on the streets will undoubtedly move people. As for the fact that you continued afterwards, who will that surprise? You had only known that. Nobody helped you.”

“Yes, you!”

Even if Snape had done it for the benefit of his country.

“That’s not how people will see it. For them, you will be the victim, I will be the one who benefits. After all, instead of marrying a woman of good family, I’m going to hook up with a man of petty virtue, who has no money and who will jointly reign with me on the Hogwarts throne. I could be portrayed as a prince who doesn't give a damn about the values of his country, who stains the crown and prefers to go chasing prostitutes, marry one of them instead of acting like he should, at the risk of sinking Hogwarts. Considering this, my people might force me to abdicate. Thus, I will lose my title, my crown and my lands which would go to a distant member of my family. Despite this, I take the risk of getting engaged to you.”

Harry was blown away. Seen in this light, the one who feared the most was the prince.

“All that for what in the end?” Harry whispered. “For a fucking kingdom that will fall apart if you don’t? Either way, you will lose your crown.”

“Abdicating is just a draconian measure and if it ever did, it would be to put on the throne a family that has lived in Edinburgh for generations and not in the least known at Hogwarts. Convinced?”

“I don’t know what to be convinced by but if you say so–”

Footsteps, heavy and slow on the stairs, drove them into silence. It wasn't Rosmerta but Crabbe. Harry found him scarier than the last time they had seen each other. He was at least as big as McNair’s two thick, brainless brutes, but he made Harry want to flee more. Which was saying a lot because the Londoner's bodyguards already scared him.

“Your Highness,” he began in a slow voice, “your private secretary has instructed me to remind His Highness of the meeting with the advisers at two o’clock.”

“Ah yes, the meeting,” Snape sighed, rubbing his face.

He checked his watch and nodded.

“What’s the time?”

“One thirty. I doubt we have time to finish our lunch.”

“Why? All you have to do is go to your thing and I end up choking on my own. As it was foreseen.”

“Well. Do you at least have what to pay?”

“No, I was planning to get rid of it like a thief!” Harry quipped. “Course I have money! Who do you take me for?”

It was what he thought. Snape didn’t trust him at all. It was perhaps worse than the rest in the end.

In order to avoid any misunderstanding and any other question that would prove to him that he was right from A to Z, Potter drew from his coat pocket a small wad of folded bills, the result of his passes between the end of his stay at the hospital and his departure for Hogwarts. The rest were in his room, deep in a sock. It was what he owed MacNair, but now that he was more or less free, he didn't have to treasure it anymore.

He noticed Snape who looked suspicious.

“Looking at your head, you want to know if I stung it. I won it, just imagine then stop looking at me like that!”

The prince raised his hands in surrender.

“My question was inappropriate, I apologise.”

“Pretty much yeah.”

“So I leave you with Vincent and Ernie.”

Harry couldn’t help but open his eyes wide. Choosing between Crabbe and Goyle, he preferred Goyle a hundred times, a thousand times.

“Hey, I don’t need a nanny!” he lost his temper, “hoping that would make Severus reconsider the question.”

“As Ernie and Stan have no doubt told you, the presence of bodyguards is non-negotiable. It is written in black and white in the contract which is in your room and which awaits only your signature.

“Fuck, you’re pissing off with your shitty contract! Looks like that’s what interests you! That all your fucking life is made up of contracts! When you fuck, do you make the other sign a contract?”

Snape laughed, surprising Harry who hadn't expected to see him react that way, but also because the prince seemed to be transfiguring. His face was becoming less harsh, more accessible and above all, it was no longer just charming, it was beautiful.

“Good God, no. Just up to you. And it’s a contract that protects us both. You, by having – nannies who thus avoid being shot or beaten–”

“Or who can tell you everything I’ve done.”

“And it assures me that you won’t do anything,” Snape continued, seemingly not having heard what Potter had just said. I’ll let you go about your – business and we will meet for dinner. A word of advice: don’t try to escape the vigilance of Vincent and Ernie. I doubt you like what he might do when they get their hands on you.”

Harry also strongly doubted he would appreciate it. Only, instead of shutting up and looking at his plate, he brazenly stared at Crabbe and said:

“Otherwise what ? Will he spank me?”

Another burst of laughter from Severus. Harry could even see a small, amused smirk on the bodyguard's mouth.

“That’s an interesting idea. Vincent, if Mr. Potter were to run away, please let me watch the show. I think that would be very entertaining.”

Which proved to Harry that Severus Snape was completely nuts and that his place was not on a throne but in an asylum.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello beautiful readers,
> 
> Kindly reminder  
> I do not own the Harry Potter Universe nor its characters. They belong to J. K. Rowling, all rights belong to her. This work is a translation of the fanfiction "SAS, Son Altesse Sérénissime" written and posted by Nanola Meylhann on fanfiction.net. I only own the translation.
> 
> On this joyful note, I hope you enjoy this new chapter.

When he woke up Harry could predict it would be a bad day. First, because the sky outside was overcast and it was raining. Two, because it was his last day, whether or not the prince could finally decide to send him back to London, to the streets. Three, because Harry felt nauseous, heavy, exhausted and hot.

It wasn’t the first time he had been like this. In general, he waited for things to pass or tried to beg someone who sold it for medicine, for his body to avoid having to spend astronomical sums.

The young man opened one eye, closed it again and bundled up in his quilt, his head aching.

When that happened to him, he managed to get up. There, he didn’t want to. He was deep in his bed, warm under that thick duvet and if the curtains had been closed Harry would have been the happiest of men. Except that to achieve this goal, he had to get up, something highly unthinkable at this moment. Far too nauseous.

The worst part was not the light that blinded poor Harry, it was the fact that he couldn’t get back to sleep. He wanted to, though. Close his eyes and sink into the sweet world of sleep to forget his headache, his heavy body, that warmth and coldness that had taken hold of each other.

Lying on his back, Harry slowly sank into a restless sleepiness, alternating with periods of consciousness that left him more exhausted than anything else.

He barely heard the familiar scratching of his bedroom door. A tired animal’s growl was the only sound that came out of his mouth and made him wince. He felt like he had been drunk, something that had only happened to him once or twice… in seven years, and all with Peter.

“Mr. Potter?” murmured Vicky. “It’s nine o’clock.”

Harry wanted to tell him that he suspected it. It was he who had asked the maid to come and wake him up every morning at this time so that he could spend a large part of the morning walking around. Usually he would go to the ruins, to explore them, and when he wasn’t, it was because he was somewhere in Hogwarts, wandering the streets. He was looking at nature, trying to figure out what could have happened so that all the vegetation disappeared overnight. It was kind of his future role, after all. Although he did not know what he would have to do in the future.

According to the prophecy, he was the Child of four, born of their elemental powers. Or rather, he was the reincarnation of this creation. No one, not even him, really knew what that meant. Just that he had a few weeks, a few months to marry the prince and take the throne to rule alongside him.

He had been there for a month. According to Severus, there were only nine months left before Hogwarts actually disappeared.

“Mr. Potter?” Vicky repeated as the young man hadn’t answered.

“I’m going to stay at the stake this morning. Not hungry.”

“Good. Should I tell His Highness that you won’t be joining her for breakfast?”

“Don’t care. Do whatever you want.”

As long as we left him in peace.

“Could you close the curtains? Please?”

He heard the sound of heels on the floor and then muffled by the carpet and the sound of curtains being pulled along their rods. A few moments later, darkness filled the room and Harry sighed in relief.

“’nks,” he whispered.

The door closed in the process. Harry didn’t hear him, busy slowly sinking into the sleep that had fled him.

It was a cool hand on his forehead that woke him with a start. Distraught, heart pounding in his rib cage, he tried to see who was standing there, but the lack of light failed to help him, nor his headache which had returned, sharper and more painful than it was. lightning.

“I’m not a doctor, however I think it would be wise to call one.”

“Sev,” Harry stammered pitifully.

After a month living under the same roof as Snape, Harry had ended up calling him by his first name, a little coerced and forced. At the end of two weeks, they had decided to make friends with each other.

“When Vicky told me that you were not in good shape, I preferred to come in person and indeed, you are not in good shape.

“I’m good. I’m just knackered. ’Need two or–”

“Two or three days off should actually get you back on your feet, plus medication. Did you go out yesterday?”

“Not long.”

“With a suitable coat and shoes or your sweatshirt and your sneakers with holes?

When he spoke in that tone, Harry felt like he was just a kid who had done something wrong and was being scolded by his father. Except that Severus was not his father, was not supposed to play this role. In a few hours or days, they would be engaged and in a few weeks, married. For the best but especially the worst.

“I didn’t want to mess the shoes and the coat.”

“At the risk of surprising you, it is December, it is raining a lot outside, it is cold and you walk around as if it were summer.”

It had been cold since his arrival and not a day went by without it raining at least a large part of the day. The minutes of fine weather were counted on the fingers of one hand. Severus ensured that normally it wasn’t so bad. But Harry sensed that it was partly his fault. Hogwarts was falling apart, the weather above could be out of order too.

“I bet you have the flu. I’ll have a doctor call. You stay in bed.”

“Yes Dad.”

It was an order he was going to carry out with infinite pleasure. He was exhausted from just talking.

The cool hand left his forehead. The headache that had slightly disappeared came back in force, in a painful and brutal way, making him moan low.

“And I’ll make you get an aspirin.”

“Kind. ’nks.”

Severus left him and silence surrounded him as someone in his head tapped a drum, preventing him from falling back into that beneficent sleep.

It wasn’t until we entered his room that he was about to fall asleep.

“Why ? he asked in an abominably husky voice.”

The beginning of his sentence had not come out, stuck in his throat. And when no one answered him, he realized that maybe he hadn't spoken audibly to the human ear.

“What’s that?”

“I’m Doctor Pomfrey,” a woman said a little too cheerfully.

He saw her come into his line of vision when she pulled the curtains back slightly. She was quite tall, slim and energetic. More than Harry if he had been his age. Her grey hair was tied in a tight bun, giving her a stern look lessened by her twinkling brown eyes and expression lines.

“Here it is. I hadn’t seen you hiding that you were under that big duvet. Would you mind allowing me to examine you?”

Harry nodded painfully and saw her walk over, put her thick satchel by the bed and then open it.

“Sit down little one, how do you expect me to do anything if you’re curled up?”

With difficulty, Harry straightened up. When the quilt slipped from his shoulders, he shivered violently, despite the thick pyjamas he had received from Severus when he arrived at the palace.

“It won’t be long,” the doctor promised him before starting his auscultation.

As far back as he could remember, Harry had never seen a doctor. If he was sick, no one would come and give him anything. Except at school when he went to the infirmary. Except that he was immediately sent back to his uncle and aunt who left him in his cupboard under the stairs with drugs that were often far from suitable to save him from his illness.

Throughout the consultation, Harry trembled and longed to lie down to bury himself under his quilt for the rest of his life. Especially since the doctor had asked him to remove his long-sleeved T-shirt to place his frozen stethoscope on his chest.

“Flu,” Pomfrey announced after a long time.

“Neat,” Potter replied.

“You can get dressed. I’m going to prescribe you some medicine and the bed but I don’t think you will leave it of your own accord, will you?”

“No, that’s clear,” Harry muttered, eagerly pulling on his pyjama top and sinking under the sheets.

The tremors that had seized him throughout the auscultation slowly subsided as his body radiated a gentle heat, finally warming it. He was good. He didn’t hear Severus and Pomfrey leave his room or see the curtains being closed.

His flu kept him in bed for three days. During those three long days of raving, he only got up to go to the bathroom and wash himself, which was quite an achievement. A bowl rested near her couch and she had served more than he wanted, knowing that every meal was fully regurgitated. Even the water did not pass. As a result, Harry was weak, exhausted, hungry, thirsty and sick with over thirty-nine fever at the height of the illness.

Despite these three days of forced rest, the question of the end of his contract had been addressed.

“Have you made up your mind?”

“It depends,” Harry muttered from the back of his bed. “If I say no, will you kick me out when I’m dead or will you be nice and let me heal before you kick me out? No, because if that’s it, just for the bed, I say yes.”

“So your answer is no,” Severus guessed.

Harry closed his eyes, tired. The prince didn’t know how much he wanted to stay here, to have this life. Of course, until then, he had been free and if he accepted, nothing would be the same. Except that in reality, he didn't care.

If fate had placed him in front of Severus, in his hands, his arms, it was for a good reason: to save Hogwarts. He had a mission to accomplish and could not leave without trying. Afterwards, who knows, he would leave since no one would need him.

“I did not say that. I just wanted to know something. And worse, my head hurts, you’re not going to start swelling me up to talk good English.

“Did you have time to think about it at least?”

Harry stared at him badly.

“My God, you look like a zombie crossed with something else,” the prince sneered.

“Is the Highness into humour now? Not too much clown food, it obviously doesn’t work for you. Yeah, I had time to think about that shitty proposition. And you know what? I have to be as crazy as you to agree to stay here.”

“Oh, are you staying?”

“Fuck, Severus,” Harry croaked, his throat horribly dry from speaking. “I have a job to do here. I just can’t walk away and leave you in your shit. I thought you got that. I’m a good guy. I’ve always paid my debts – almost always,” he said to himself, suddenly thinking of McNair.” Can I have a glass of water, please? I’m dying of thirst.”

A glass was placed between his fingers and a helping hand helped him up. He took a sip and sank back onto the pillow.

“’nks. Looks like it surprises you that I finally stay?”

“With all your rants, your fits and the rest, I was indeed wondering. I was ready to give you what the crown owed you and see my country crumble. What ... What made you change your mind?

“I never changed my mind. I have a mission, remember? Something important that has to do with your country. I still don’t know how I should complete this fucking mission, but I'll do my best to make Hogwarts the way it was before.”

“Thank you.”

Severus had left him alone ever since. He hadn’t gone to see him either during his recovery. It had to be said that Harry had spent most of his time sleeping. And when he wasn’t asleep, he would throw up or try to eat something that he hoped on every try would be accepted by his stomach.

During those three days Harry didn’t think about his new situation let alone the changes it would bring. He preferred to mourn silently over his sick plight and hope it would end.

When, at the end of the third day, when he woke up to realize he was better, Harry almost screamed that it was a miracle. He was hungry, thirsty, and felt he could swallow an elephant. A few minutes later, Francesca entered, a smile on her lips.

“Hello Mr. Potter. Did you sleep well?”

“Oh yeah. I’m famished and I’m on fire.”

Her servant smiled as her colleague entered, a tray in her hands.

“She’s fucking reading my mind,” Harry whispered.

Neither servant took offense at his vocabulary. After a month, they had finally got used to it, just as they now agreed not to run away after their tasks were finished.

“We heard about the news,” Vicky began, placing the tray on the empty side of the bed.

“What news?” Harry yawned loudly.

“The fact that you remain with us at the palace.”

The young man slowly put down the croissant he had just taken in his hand. This news there. The one that made him a man betrothed to a prince.

Oddly, it took his appetite away.

“Mr. Potter?” called Vicky.

“Could you leave me? Please?”

Vicky and Francesca bowed and left the room. Harry pushed back the tray and lay back down, resting his head against the pillow.

Fiancé. He was engaged.

Until then, this word had not taken on its full meaning. But now Harry was realizing what it meant. He was going to have to marry a man who didn't love him, a person with whom he would share nothing except a throne and a crown.

The young man may have had a chaotic past, made his money more or less legally by selling his body, he had always hoped to find someone who could love him, cherish him, make him feel different and push him to stop everything. Not a customer, not another prostitute, just someone he might have met by chance.

It would never be. Harry was doomed to live with a man who would admittedly be kind, present and caring enough, yet he wouldn't like him. Not like Harry would like.

This engagement and marriage thereafter inexorably linked him to a future he did not want.

Again, he had no choice in his life. The only one he had had was the street and prostitution and he had not been good.

Harry lay there, thinking about his future if he ever had one here at the palace.

He was imprisoned.

0o0

Severus nervously patted his knee. He was not reassured by his meeting with Sibyl Trelawney. During this past month, he had completely forgotten her and there, she remembered him overnight. As if she knew he had made his choice and that the Child was there.

“Your Highness?” whispered his private secretary. “Should I tell Vincent to go get–”

“Let Harry rest. He’s slowly recovering from his flu, I’m not going to force the presence of this – crazy woman on him.”

Especially since he preferred to know his fiancé far from this whole story even if he was the first concerned. Harry was not ready to enter the twists and turns of worldliness. Severus readily agreed that he was going to have to prepare it fairly quickly in view of the various receptions, the business meals they were going to have to attend, but until Harry was officially introduced as his fiancé, he didn’t have to. to take part.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Hermione Granger put her hand to her ear and the headset that was slipped into it, then gave her sovereign a nervous smile.

“Mrs Trelawney is here, Your Highness.”

“Let her in,” Severus sighed.

He really appreciated the work Hermione had been doing for three years. She was a perfectly accomplished young woman who had experience in the field of managerial assistance. She had worked for a year with a berserk of fashion, Fleur Delacour, a Frenchwoman whom Snape had been delighted to infuriate by taking away her assistant. It had to be said that hers did not last long with her. One year and they left, nerves on edge, close to burnout, even suicide.

Hermione was a twenty-five-year-old woman engaged to a painter of rising fame, one Ronald Weasley whose shop was at Hogwarts. Severus appealed to him when he wanted a unique painting.

“Yes Your Highness,” Hermione bowed before raising her phone to her ear. “You can bring her in.”

The door opened less than a minute later on Sibyl Trelawney clad in a heavy hunting coat, her head covered in a chapka and her feet shod in muddy boots that left plenty of beautiful marks on the carpet.

“Your Highness. Glad to see you again - alone, said the "clairvoyant", taken aback when she seemed to realize that there was only Severus. Sorry, but I thought I was also seeing your - fiancé.”

So she knew then that no one else knew.

“As you can see, he’s not here.”

Trelawney pouted and Severus didn’t like it. But it only lasted a second since she seemed to find an open face. She was still wearing her huge glasses that made her look like a fly.

“I am happy to see that you have made the right decision, Your Highness.”

“I care about my homeland.”

“But she is not yet saved.”

“What do you mean?” Severus snarled.

He had thought that when he was married everything would be resolved, that Hogwarts would be saved, that his country would not fall apart as this woman had said.

“The Child of Four is the key. He’s got to fulfil the prophecy.”

“The prophecy ? But you are completely–”

The prince paused before saying the word “crazy”.

“Crazy? Peculiar? Eccentric? Mad? It would not be the first time that I have been showered with these terms. I know what everyone thinks of me, that I don't have light on all floors.”

She chuckled, which clearly proved that she wasn’t quite her head.

“But on this subject, have I ever lied to you?” she resumed perfectly serious. “If the prophecy is not fulfilled, Hogwarts will be destroyed and you, Your Highness, will die.”

All blood deserted the face of the prince who froze in his chair. Pass away ? It hadn’t been mentioned before. The woman had spoken of Hogwarts, not him.

“Seeing your face, you forgot my warning.”

“Your – I’m sorry? But you never spoke of death. Not mine anyway!”

“Oh yes, Severus Snape. But you forgot it. When Hogwarts is a wasteland, you will be a rotting corpse.”

“I am going to–”

He was going to die. It was not what had been planned. For weeks he had dwelled on the fact that it would be Hogwarts that was going to disappear. Not him.

“A rotting corpse. Obviously that would be nine months from now if Harry didn't fulfil the prophecy. But that meant that–”

“He’s going to die too?” he asked in a blank voice. “In fact, all this will not help! If he dies, everything disappears and to fulfil the prophecy he must die!”

“It’s a choice.”

“I do not understand! So is there nothing to do?!”

“Yes, fulfil the prophecy,” replied Sibyl quietly.

“By dying? No but are you kidding me?! Imagine I said that without yelling, he added, trying to stay calm.”

“I’ll try to imagine it. And no, I’m not making fun of you, Your Highness. I am not the one who wrote this prophecy. I’m just passing the words on to you. I am only a messenger. Or an ominous bird, your choice. You must know that nothing is impossible, Your Highness.”

She smiled at him like she knew something, which she probably did.

“I am sorry to announce this to you like this Your Highness.”

Severus closed his eyes, looking painful. He felt bad. Very bad. As bad as when he learned that the person it was intended for was a man, even worse, a man who physically sold himself for money.

“I think I’ll leave you, Your Highness.”

She left the living room. Only the mud traces remained in its path.

Severus remained walled in silence for long minutes. No matter how much he turned it around in his head, the result was always the same. Potter or he was going to die, at best. At worst, they would both die.

“Hermione,” he called slowly.

“Your Highness?”

His private secretary was there, faithful to the post.

“I want to see Potter.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Half an hour later, Harry walked into the living room, still looking a little woozy but in much better health than three days before.

“How are you?”

Potter almost threw himself on the first couch he found. He was pale, ill.

“I vomited more, it is already that but I would not have been against even sleeping a little.”

He lay down and closed his eyes. Severus suppressed the urge to get up and go stroke the messy hair. He didn't know what was taking him lately, this sudden and hard to suppress urge to touch his fiancé. He was doing his best to fight him, to recover, to understand himself.

The first time the prince had seen Harry in these pictures, he had found him handsome. When he had seen him in person, standing in the pouring rain with his hair falling over his eyes, he had realized that the term “handsome” was wrong, that Potter was more than that. And once in front of his eyes, sitting across from him, he felt a need to run away from him. This need had not left him.

Until he had dinner with Harry at the Three Broomsticks, looked at him for a long time, and that urgency suddenly disappeared. Which suited him since they had gradually come to know and appreciate each other although Severus could not help but behave like papa hen with him when his fiancé decided to override his health.

“Who went for a walk in the mud and who screwed it up everywhere? I’m pleading not guilty,” Harry muttered.

“That is not the point. I – learnt some things and I think it’s important that you know that.”

The prince bit his lip as Potter looked back at him, looking haggard and feverish with the flu.

“Did you find something that frees us both from this marriage you don’t want?”

Which he didn’t want? As if he was the only one who didn’t want it, that Harry was finally starting to accept his future role. Nevertheless, he decided not to raise this point, putting it on the words of a patient just out of his convalescence.

“Very funny,” Severus retorted. “If only. Believe me, this is not good news.”

“I have to order a basin? No because I’ve just eaten and for once I have something in the gut and I would like it to stay there, I might as well warn me if I have to part with it.”

The prince shook his head. There were things he preferred not to know, including Harry's urge to vomit, especially after breakfast and during digestion as his own stomach threatened to empty in turn just at the mention.

He wanted to end this discussion quickly enough, so he decided to go frankly.

“Do you remember the prophecy? The words?”

“Yeah,” Harry sighed. “At the dawn of the millennium, the Child of the Four will take up the torch from his fathers. He will be born when the seventh month dies. Marked with the sign of lightning, He will appear in blood under the gaze of his mother. At the dawn of the millennium, one other than the Child alongside the Prince will see Hogwarts disappear from the lands. So what? What the hell is the thing fucking you? Because there is something that pisses you off, right?”

“You, me, we – are going to die,” Severus blurted out a little more abruptly than expected.

“I don’t want to spill, I want to faint. Right now! What? But damn, where did you get that shitty idea?!”

For once, Severus did not even have the heart to use it for his vocabulary. If he had been given the opportunity, he would have said the exact same thing.

“A certain Sibyl Trelawney has come. She’s the one who told me about you. She had said the same thing to my father twenty years ago and he did nothing. After I took the throne, she tried to warn me without my really paying attention. I only wanted Pansy. She made me understand that if I continued like this, at the end of the year, in nine months, I would – die.”

Saying that word gave him more meaning, a reality that he wasn’t ready to face.

“Oh shit then,” Harry stammered, sitting up as best he could.

“As you say. I – concealed this detail to concentrate on the rest and it turns out that this Sibyl passed by earlier. She kindly reminded me of that point before telling me that death was a choice.”

“A choice? A choice? Is it a choice to die? Fuck, pay your shit choice! And me? When am I supposed to croak? No because it’s not clear what your thing is!”

Harry was getting angry and once again from the start of this discussion, Severus saw no point in contradicting him or asking him to calm down. He himself still had a hard time accepting this truth.

“It seemed obvious to me. He will appear in blood under his mother’s gaze. Trelawney did not deny.”

He didn’t know why he was so certain Harry was going to die. It was obvious to him even if it was not what he wanted for his fiancé, God forbid.

“Severus, at the risk of sounding like an idiot or making you look like an idiot, when you bleed, you don’t die. Not necessarily.”

Severus made a funny noise that strongly resembled, at least to his ears, a hysterical chuckle.

“Thank you Mr Potter for this brilliant deduction. But what does appearing in blood mean to you? Personally, a murder. Not a simple little cut. I’m talking about a puddle under your feet.”

How could he make it clear to Harry? In his head, it was clear. To explain it was just impossible. As if the words couldn’t get out of his mouth. It was one of the few times his mind couldn't speak, find what to say.

“I don’t know how to explain it to you.”

“Try. With words. It seems that it is easier. And be clear, my brain is still dull. Don’t sure to get it all.”

For a bit, Severus would have laughed. Except that he didn’t really want to.

“Appearing in blood, I can’t get rid of the image of someone covered in – that. Which means you could be hurt badly enough to be – covered.”

“No doubt, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to die. The proof, It will appear, Sev. And in your fucking prophecy, did not say that I die. You neither. So you stop messing around with this bullshit and focus on your job, Harry said calmly, leaning over him. I will do mine. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? We’re going to do what we’re doing here. That is to say getting married even if you don’t want to. And when all this mess is over, your country is as it was before, you can find a girl who will accept to take my place.”

“To succeed, the fact that you are prince consort will be only a detail, cried Severus annoyed that Harry could not or would not understand. We have to fulfil the prophecy.”

“I’m not stupid, Sev. This part, I got it. When I find my mother, I’ll tell you. For now, I’m trying to get over this crappy flu and when I’m correct, I’ll go back to work. It is I who will have to fulfil the prophecy. You just play king, prince, I don’t care. Okay?”

“Okay,” Severus whispered.

“Cool. Can I go? I don’t think I’m cured.”

“You don’t have to ask permission, you know?”

Harry didn’t bother to answer. He stood up painfully and stumbled towards the door. For a moment, Severus considered the idea of helping him before refraining from moving.

Once alone, the prince thought back to all that morning, the two interviews. Harry’s and Trelawney’s. He rubbed his eyes, a headache gripping his temples. Why had he had the unpleasant feeling that he was the only person in this world who understood what others did not see?

Or, and this possibility greatly disturbed him, he hadn't understood anything.

This story was going to drive him crazy.

“Your Highness,” Hermione said. Countess Parkinson wants an interview with Her Highness and you have a meeting with the “Hogwarts in Bloom” association in five minutes.

Suffice to say that he preferred a hundred times to invite Sibyl to dance a waltz rather than having to talk to Lady Parkinson. Fortunately he had this meeting to cancel the interview with his ex-future mother-in-law who tended to forget who he was.

“Tell the countess that I don’t have time to receive her, either by phone or verbally. And bring in the president of this association. You might as well not keep her waiting unnecessarily. Also warn Harry that if he’s fit enough – no, don’t tell him.”

“Yes Your Highness.”

A moment later, a curvaceous woman with a pretty face entered.

“Mrs. Sprout,” Severus exclaimed, with too much enthusiasm.

“Your Highness,” replied Pomona Sprout, president of the “Hogwarts in Bloom” association.

Severus presented her with a seat and sat down with her.

“Let’s talk little but talk well,” he began, as Mrs. Sprout pulled out a pencil and paper from an already rather worn green cardboard folder.

His fingers and fingernails were blackened by the soil that had seeped into every interstice of the skin over the years and only time would allow him to find hands in good condition. Because of that, she never shook hands with the prince who had tried several times to tell her that he didn't care. It wasn’t like Mrs. Sprout was dirty. She had a messy job but made sure to show off in her best light when she showed up at the palace.

Today, she wore black pants, a red sweater that emphasized her curves and a floral-patterned scarf around her neck. For having seen her at receptions where she was invited because the decorator, Severus could assure that she knew how to dress perfectly. She was a beautiful woman who had turned the heads of many men in her youth. Severus had known her for years. He had had a crush on her when he was just a child. But he had learned that she was married and that had ended his childish romance.

“In two weeks, as you know, we have the traditional Christmas ball.”

“Your Highness, I have no plants. Nothing that couldn’t grow and Martin tried everything. We had thought of using a company located ten kilometres from here. Only even their plants already cut and prepared, the bouquets do not survive more than an hour before turning to dust. I have a solution but I doubt that it really suits you.”

“At the point where we are – I take all the ideas.”

“Plastic plants. Some are very realistic. Of course, we won’t have the scent, but it’s–”

“An interesting idea,” said Severus.

It was obvious that he was not in favour of this kind of decoration. He preferred the real thing to a vulgar plastic replica, but the Christmas ball at Hogwarts couldn’t be done without flowers.

“Otherwise,” Sprout went on, “this year we can do without flowers and prepare the ballroom as if it were a salon or a house. With garlands, balls, candles – after all, it’s Christmas.”

“My grandfather had established this tradition. We all grew up with it. I wish I hadn’t changed that. But apparently this year is the year of change.”

And that was saying a lot since he planned to announce to his people that he was going to marry a man in a few weeks while everyone expected that the lucky one would be a woman and that it takes a little more than a month and a half.

“Do you think you can still take care of the decoration even if it’s just garlands?”

Mrs Sprout smiles. She was the best. Her house was always the prettiest, no matter the season. Except since the country was deteriorating.

“Of course Your Highness.”

One less thing to do. This was what Severus thought. This thorny point was in the process of being resolved.

“Otherwise, Mrs Sprout – I have another request for you.”

He paused for a moment. How do you ask someone who didn’t know their intention that they wanted specific flowers for their engagement to Harry? He wanted to make this evening something unforgettable for her future husband. However, Severus wondered if it wasn’t too feminine to do such a thing. Especially since he did not know Harry’s tastes in floral matters. What was his favourite plant?

The prince had the awful feeling of knowing nothing about the man who was going to share his life within a few weeks.

“No, actually, forget what I just said. Are we done?”

“Your Highness, may I – ask you a perhaps indiscreet question? If so, please excuse me.”

It was obviously not over. He nodded, quite surprised and curious at the same time.

“Do I have something ready for your – engagement?”

Surprise won out.

“I beg your pardon ?”

“Please forgive me, Your Highness,” Mrs Sprout flushed. “It was a very indiscreet question.”

She stood up and bowed with the clear optics of leaving, running away. Severus tried to recover, stunned by what he had just heard.

“Wait, how are you – what engagement are you talking about?”

Might as well not make a mistake and announce a piece of news that he would have preferred to keep in the palace until the ball. If Mrs Sprout wanted to talk about her union with Pansy, she was no longer very aware since this union was no longer relevant.

“All Hogwarts talks about nothing more than that, of your engagement with this young man. This Harry Potter.”

Severus passed the stage of surprise. He was beyond.

“How–”

“Mrs Trelawney spoke about this a little after your separation from young Lady Parkinson, Your Highness,” replied Mrs Sprout, wiggling the corner of her sheet, her gaze fixed on one end of the carpet or the prince’s shoes, her cheeks red with embarrassment. “We all thought she was fabricating. Again. And then we saw him walk around and back and forth in Hogwarts. Then he – ate at The Three Broomsticks with you.”

The prince closed his eyes. Mrs Rosmerta had spoken. She couldn’t help it. As for the ramblings of that crazy Trelawney – he hadn’t even thought of it. He cursed himself for not having known how to foresee it.

“You seem to be taking it calmly,” he said.

“Sibyl told us it was for Hogwarts. We were quite – amazed. Shocked. You – were – you were going to marry a woman and we – he was a man to replace her. It was also very – fast. So we ended up believing her and – at first, no one really understood why you picked this man overall. I mean he’s handsome, very handsome but – he was a man who – he wasn’t from here. I’m sorry Your Highness, Mrs. Sprout chuckled nervously. I’m totally confused. We now understand why him after Sibyl explained everything to us. Despite this, I sincerely hope that you will be happy with him even though he is only there to save Hogwarts.”

“What about the others? Do they take it as calmly as you? And I’m surprised I haven’t seen anything in the newspapers, even in that cabbage leaf that is the Daily Prophet. I thought Miss Skeeter would jump at the chance with undisguised glee.”

Rita Skeeter was the haunt of the princely house. This unscrupulous journalist didn't mind the obstacles to publishing an article that would portray the Snape family as murderers, rapists and psychopaths. Yes, Severus hated this woman whom he deemed to be the shame of the journalistic profession. He hated her since she had dared to publish that he was actually not a man but a woman and that his family had done everything to make him change his gender so that he could have access to the throne. For a long time, his school friends had laughed at him, leaving him alone.

Tobias had tried to censor articles, to force newspapers to publish only if the princely family agreed. For recent newspapers, the clause was passed. For those like the Daily Prophet, the press in which Skeeter published, they were free to write articles and this woman was having a great time.

Prior to his arrival twenty years earlier, the Gazette was a small local newspaper with a strong focus on herbal remedies, popular beliefs, and wacky tales of people who believed they had dealt with people with paranormal powers.

But since Skeeter had been hired, some things had changed. The Gazette was in the eyes of some of the people a vulgar rag because it lined up slanderous articles. That said, it was selling well.

“She was fired from the Gazette, Your Highness. Barnabass having retired two months ago, Betty has taken her place and she hates Rita. So – she kicked her out before Rita had time to write anything.”

Pomona chuckled again, apparently very happy with the news. She was like Severus, she didn’t carry Skeeter in her heart. And for Snape, Barnabas Cuffe’s replacement, Betty Braithwaite was good news. She was a serious woman, quite the opposite of her predecessor who was a bit whimsical and quite elsewhere more often than not.

“I was not aware of this matter,” Severus admitted. “Where is she?”

A wounded and humiliated woman was capable of anything to take revenge and the prince preferred not to be the target of this revenge.

“As far as I know, Your Highness, Rita left for London a month ago. She moved. This was glossed over because her start is as interesting as Puppy’s twentieth litter.”

Severus smiled. Puppy was the miracle dog of Hogwarts. The bitch had, according to her owner, twenty litters and all the puppies were in good health, three accidents from which she had escaped unharmed and a lifespan – longer than that of normal dogs. Everyone smiled when their master spoke to her. Boris Jorkins was an original. One of those who bought the Gazette for his articles on miracle recipes for eternal life and other trivia.

Obviously Hogwarts did not carry Skeeter in its heart. For Severus, it was a good thing. At least he wouldn’t have to fear the fallout from the official announcement of his engagement to Harry.

“So do I have to do something special for this event?”

“What do you mean by special?” Severus inquired.

“Flowers – plastic… I admit that he would have been a woman, it would have been easier.”

She winced and closed her eyes, embarrassed. As if she was trying to convince herself that it hadn't come out of her mouth.

“Please excuse me, Your Highness. I don’t know what took from me. I should not have.”

“You’re totally right. If Mr. Potter had been a woman, I would have placed an order for you without any hesitation. However, it is not and that is the whole point. I don’t know what to do either to celebrate this announcement, to mark the occasion as they say.”

“Can I suggest something to His Highness? I have an idea.”

Severus nodded. Any idea was good to take.

“Buttonholes? These will only be plastic flowers but I can make specific buttonholes for you and your fiancé. It is not very important after all and maybe silly.

“No,” Severus replied. “No, the idea is not stupid. I didn’t think about that at all. To tell the truth, I was not thinking of anything. I didn't have the slightest solution. It remains quite discreet.

He told himself that in a few weeks, he would have to go around the jewellers in London in order to make their wedding ring. Choosing a date also had to be done, as well as the guests…

Severus bit back a moan. And to think that during the preparation of marriage with Pansy, they had already done all this, that everything had been cancelled. He was going to have to start over. Just thinking about it gave him a headache.

This point would have to be addressed with Harry but especially with Hermione.

He would also have to order the costumes for the Christmas reception. Severus would have much preferred to be content with his meetings with his advisers instead of taking his head over trivial details which, taken together, could lead to colossal problems if not taken care of and horrible headaches.

“Do I have to make a sketch in order to have your approval?”

“No. So far, I have never had anything to say about any of your proposals. You know my tastes. I doubt you can take the slightest misstep.”

He gave Mrs. Sprout a smile. Smile that grows slightly when seeing the president of the association “Hogwarts in bloom” blush.

The petulant and bubbly botanist finally left, the interview was over. Severus took advantage of this quiet and lonely time before Hermione returned to remind him of the countless tasks inherent in his role as prince, to think for a moment about what had become of his life. Potter would have been there, the word “shit” would have been used very clearly and Severus would have had nothing to complain about.

Because his life had turned into a mess.


End file.
